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WHAT  HAPPENED 

DURING 

ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

1840-1920 


A  Review  of 
Some  Great,  Near  Great  and  Little  Events 


By 
WILLARD  A.  BURNAP 


PRICE  $2.50. 


Published  by  the  Burnap  Estate 

W.  L.  Burnap,  M.  D.,  Administrator 

Fergus  Falls,  Minnesota 

1923 


Copyright,  1923,  by  the  Willard  A.  Burnap  Estate 

Fergus  Falls,  Minnesota 

W.  L.  Burnap,  Administrator 


?7J 


INTRODUCTION 

This  book  would  not  have  written  had  not  Mr. 
Burnap's  friends  persistently  and  unanimously  urged  him 
to  the  task. 

He  told,  for  the  most  part,  of  things  about  which 
he  had  first-hand  knowledge.  The  facts  for  "The  Pas- 
sing of  the  Indian"  were  gathered  in  the  wigwams  and 
hunting  fields  of  the  Red  men  before  the  Civil  War  while 
they  were  still  "blanket, Indians."  For  "The  Settling  of 
the  West"  he  pioneered  in  three  or  more  states,  beginning 
in  1852  and  ending  only  with  his  death  in  northern  Minne- 
sota in  the  spring  of  1923.  For  "The  Freeing  of  the 
Negro"  he  campaigned  in  the  South  for  four  years,  in- 
cluding the  dates  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  and 
the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  and  made  many  shorter  so- 
journs there  in  later  years.  His  "Findings  of  Three  Wars" 
were  based  on  the  same  four  years  of  service  in  the  Civil 
War  and  a  thoughtful  observing  of  the  events  and  con- 
ditions of  the  two  later  ones. 

This  extraordinarily  varied  experience  through  a  long 
life  was  not  all  of  the  author's  equipment  for  his  task. 
He  engaged  in  a  variety  of  occupations,  in  positions  of 
responsibility  always,  from  the  time  he  was  fourteen  years 
old,  and  thereby  acquired  a  keen  insight  into  the  essentials 
of  social  organization  as  distinguished  from  the  merely 
superficial  or  personal.  The  appeals  of  friends  to  put 
in  interesting  personal  details  he  yielded  to  only  when 
those  details  illustrated  conditions  which  constituted  the 
very  warp  and  woof  of  life  at  that  time.  The  result  is  a 
historical  and  sociological  exhibit,  covering  especially  the 
life  of  the  Middle  West  during  the  third  quarter  of  the 


nineteenth  century,  the  value  of  which  will  be  realized 
only  when  that  life  shall  have  receded  so  far  into  the 
past  as  to  leave  no  living  representatives  who  can  tell  of 
it  by  word  of  mouth. 

My  expectation  is  that  this  account  will  constitute  for 
all  time  to  come  one  of  the  indispensable  sources  of  in- 
formation about  one  of  the  great  epochs  of  American 
history. 

To  the  writing  of  this  book  the  author  devoted  the 
closing  years  of  his  life.  He  was  negotiating  with  print- 
ers and  publishers  when  his  last  illness  came  upon  him. 
It  has  devolved  upon  me  to  bring  those  negotiations  to 
a  conclusion. 

F.  R.  Clow 
State  Normal  School 
Oshkosh,  Wis. 
June,  1923 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PART  T.    THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN 9 

Chapter  I.    A  Noted  and  Historic  Gathering n 

Chapter  II.    The  Blanket  Indians  as  I  Knew  Them 29 

Chapter        III.    A  Treaty  Made  and  Broken 38 

Chapter         IV.    The  "Great  American  Desert" 52 

Chapter  V.    The  Pueblo  and  Maya  Indians 65 

PART  II.    THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST. . .  / 83 

Chapter         VI.    Some  "Impossible"  Achievements 85 

Chapter       VII.    Railroad  Building  and  Land-Grabbing 112 

Chapter     VIII.    Pioneer  Life 124 

Chapter         IX.    "Westward  Ho!"  and  the  California  Trail..  143 

Chapter  X.    Rocky  Mountain  Foothills  and  Mines 161 

Chapter         XI.    Which  is  the  Better  Half  of  the  United 

States? 180 

PART  III.    THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO 207 

Chapter       XII.    Like  Topsy,  Slavery  "Just  Growed" 209 

Chapter     XIII.    Servitude  "Befo'  de  Wah" 229 

Chapter     XIV.    When  the  "Jubilee"  Came 248 

Chapter       XV.    Five  Decades  of  Liberty 265 

Chapter     XVI.    Providence  and  Improvidence  of  the 

Freedmen    291 

PART  IV.    SO-ME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS 307 

Chapter   XVII.  The  Civil  War. 

Section      I.    Its  Opening  and  Civil  Conditions 309 

Section     II.    The  Campaign  of    1861 331 

Section  III.    The  Campaign  of    1862 339 

Section  IV.    The   Campaign   of    1863 358 

Section     V.    The   Campaign   of   1864 371 

Section  VI.  The    Campaign    of    1865  and  Closing  Events. 390 

Chapter  XVIII.  The  Spanish-American  War. 

Section      I.    Its  Commencement  and  Causes 400 

Section     II.    Movements  and  Attained  Results 407 

Chapter      XIX.  The  World  War. 

Section      I.    Our  Work  in  America 418 

Section     IT.    What  Our  Boys  Did  "Over  There" 431 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  Valley  of  the  Arkansas 1 1 

Big    Timbers 12 

The   Tunnelled    Rock 29 

"Kiva"  of   Pueblo  Indians 65 

Indian  Exhibit  at  Station  in  Albuquerque 68 

Where  I  was  Entertained  for  Dinner 70 

Pueblo  Woman  73 

Hopi  Building  at  Grand  Canyon 74 

Community  House,  Pueblo  of  San  Domingo 75 

Stone  Cathedral  at  Pueblo  of  Laguna 76 

Maya   Woman,   in   Yucatan 79 

Massacre  Monument,  Chicago 87 

First  Court  House  and  Jail,  1836 93 

Second  Court  House '96 

Third  Court  House  and  City  Hall 99 

Fourth  Court  House  and  City  Hall 103 

Fifth  Court  House  and  City  Hall 105 

Sixth  Court  House  and  City  Hall 106 

Residences  in  Trinidad,  Colorado 173 

Bridge  at  Trinidad 175 

Street    in   Trinidad 176 

Grand  Canyon,   from  Mohave   Point 181 

Grand  Canyon,   from  Hopi  Point 183 

Grand  'Canyon,-  from  Observation  Point 185 

Adamana  Reservation 187 

Petrified  Forest    188 

Petrified  Logs  189 

Hokona,  University  of  New  Mexico 191 

Fine  Art  Building,   Santa  Fe 192 

Business  Block,  Albuquerqe 194 

Land  Office,  Santa  Fe 194 

"Santa    Fe    Style" 196 

Scandia  Mountain    197 

Adobe  Houses  199 

Rio  Grande  River,  at  Albuquerqe 203 

MAPS 

The  United  States  before  the  Mexican  War 147 

Civil  War  Campaigns  332 

German  Offensives  in  1918 433 

Allied  Offensives  in   1918 434 


PART    I 


THE 
PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN 


The  Valley  of  the  Arkansas 
Looking  North  from  the  Ruins  of  Bent's  Fort 

CHAPTER  I 

A  NOTED  PLACE  AND  A  HISTORIC 
GATHERING 

In  my  "One  Man's  Lifetime"  the  most  fool-hardy 
adventure,  one  of  the  most  pleasant  episodes,  and  the 
saddest  memory  are  all  connected  with  the  North  Amer- 
ican Indian.  The  first  two  events  occurred  in  the  summer 
of  i860,  before  the  Civil  War,  a  half  century  plus  a 
decade  ago;  and  the  last  took  place  some  four  years  later. 
All  these  happenings  are  clustered  around  one  spot. 

That  place,  situated  on  the  old  "Santa  Fe  Trail," 
was  the  most  important  fort  and  Indian  trading  post  be- 
tween the  outfitting  location  on  the  Missouri  River  in  the 
East,  and   Santa  Fe  in  the   Southwest.     The   fort  was 


12 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


built  on  a  rock- footed  bluff  on  the  north  side  of  the 
Arkansas  River.  There,  as  one  looked  northwest  from 
the  summit  of  the  hill,  the  broad,  treeless  valley  of  the 
river  stretched  toward  the  mountains  hundreds  of  miles, 
level  and  smooth  as  an  irrigated  field.  Northeast,  the 
plains  rolled  away  like  an  ocean  suddenly  stabilized ;  its 
billows  covered  by  short  buffalo  grass,  on  which,  in  the 
old  times  and  at  certain  seasons,  countless  herds  of 
buffalo  ranged  north  or  south;  and  at  all  seasons, 
antelope  in  large  or  small  bands  might  then  have  been 
seen  grazing.  Southwest,  across  the  river,  a  large  belt 
of  cottonwood  trees  filled  the  valley  with  a  scene  of 
phenomenal  beauty  for  that  desert-like  land. 


"Big  Timbers" 
Across  the  River  from  the  Fort 


This  grove,   well-known   to  the  old   Indians  of   the 
plains,  was  called  "Big  Timbers."     Here  they  gathered 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  13 

for  their  feasts,  their  councils,  their  treaty  making,  and 
their  wars.  It  became  noted  in  the  early  history  of  the 
settlement  of  the  West,  especially  in  its  relation  to  the 
Indians. 

To  locate  this  station  in  the  old  times,  one  would  have 
said  it  was  on  the  Arkansas  River  about  a  hundred  and 
thirty  miles  northeast  of  Raton  Pass.  Today,  did  one 
care  to  find  it,  he  must  go  to  Lamar,  on  the  Santa  Fe 
railroad  in  the  southeastern  part  of  Colorado,  then 
cross  the  Arkansas  River  to  its  north  bank  and  take  the 
Santa  Fe  automobile  trail  for  seven  miles.  As  the  new 
trail  follows  closely  the  old  historic  one,  a  rocky  bluff  is 
reached,  still  surmounted  by  the  ruins  of  the  old  fort, 
still  overlooking  the  broad  valley  of  the  Arkansas  as  of 
old,  and  still  viewing  the  beauties  of  Big  Timbers  that 
have,  with  little  diminution,  survived  a  half  century  of 
the  white  man's  devastation. 

To  this  place,  on  the  top  of  the  bluff,  came  William 
Bent  in  1854,  and,  having  destroyed  the  old  fort  that 
he  and  his  brother  had  built  at  the  crossing  of  the 
Arkansas,  he  here  built  a  new  one  the  ruins  of  which  yet 
remain  as  stated  on  the  point  of  the  elevation.  This  was 
called  Bent's  Fort  until  it  was  transferred  to  the  Govern- 
ment in  1859.  The  Government  then  renamed  it  Fort 
Wise — after  the  Virginia  governor  who  hanged  John 
Brown.  It  did  not  long  remain  so  named;  the  Civil 
War  came  on,  the  battle  of  Wilson's  Creek  was  fought  in 
1 861,  and  the  fort  was  again  renamed.  This  time  it  was 
called  Fort  Lyon  after  the  northern  general  who  lost  his 
life  in  that  battle.  It  remained  Fort  Lyon  until  1866, 
when  the  Government  moved  the  fort  to  Las  Animas, 
and  there  built  new  Fort  Lyon. 


14  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Here,  in  Bent's  Fort,  on  the  plains  around  it  within 
sight  of  its  walls,  and  on  the  Santa  Fe  Trail  that  passed 
its  doors,  was  enacted,  almost  completely,  an  epitome  of 
our  unjust  and  disastrous  Indian  policy.  Here  treaties  were 
made  and  dazzling  promises  given — treaties  and  promises 
seldom  made  good  and  always  broken  at  will  by  the  white 
man.  Here,  the  Indians  surrendered  to  the  Government 
rich*  domains,  and  in  return  were  promised  an  uncertain 
tenure  upon  a  comparatively  few  acres  of  the  lands  they 
had  given  up,  accompanied  by  a  further  pledge  on  our 
part  to  irrigate  the  land  and  to  furnish  buildings,  domes- 
tic animals,  tools  and  instruction  in  their  use.  These 
promises  were  not  complied  with,  either  in  spirit  or  letter, 
although  the  parties  to  whom  the  promises  were  made 
had  kept  full  faith  with  the  Government  and  were 
starving  on  account  of  the  failure  of  the  good  faith  they 
had  a  right  to  expect  from  it. 

With  that  sad  story  and  its  dire  results,  I  am  perhaps 
the  only  white  man  still  living  who  was  in  any  way,  even 
remotely,  connected.  It  was  the  most  tragic  of  all  the 
many,  many  happenings  along  this  most  noted  American 
trail  of  history  and  adventure,  conflict  and  commerce, 
war  and  peace. 

The  story  I  shall  try  to  tell  cannot  be  well  visualized, 
unless,  as  a  foundation,  I  am 'permitted  to  relate  some- 
thing of  the  causes,  the  circumstances,  and  the  environ- 
ments that  led  up  to  and  surrounded  it. 

First,  of  the  Santa  Fe  Trail  itself.  It  is  worthy  of 
mention.  It  is  the  oldest,  the  most  noted,  and  the  best  used 
of  all  the  paths  that  led  from  American  savagery  to 
civilization.     It  was  first  traveled  by  white  men  nearly 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  15 

four  centuries  ago,  and,  despite  the  railroad  that  now 
parallels  it,  is  still  used. 

It  starts  at  the  greatest  river  in  the  world,  and  goes  to 
the  second  oldest  white  man's  city  in  the  United  States. 
It  was  first  known  to  history  when,  following  the  con- 
quest of  the  Pueblo  in  Mexico  in  1540,  Vasquez  de 
Coronado  with  his  band  of  fierce  fighters,  who  had  fol- 
lowed Cortez  from  Spain,  came  along  this  path  with 
their  guide  in  search  of  the  still-existing  hoax,  Quivira, 
the  city  of  gold.  They  came  almost  to  where  Kansas  City 
now  is;  there  they  killed  their  false  guide  and,  un- 
fortunately for  the  fate  of  the  poor  Pueblo  Indians, 
found  their  way  back  to  Mexico. 

Later,  it  was  traveled  by  long  pack  trains  carrying 
trading  goods  west,  and  furs  and  Indian  blankets  east; 
and  many  times  was  marked  by  the  hoofs  of  bare-foot 
ponies  and  trailing  travoix  of  moving  Indian  villages  or 
of  painted  and  befeathered  war  parties.  Then  came  the 
long,  crawling,  wagon  trains,  the  dashing  stage  coaches, 
the  flying  pony-express,  and  at  last,  the  rushing  railroad 
trains. 

It  is  a  country  of  diverse  scenery  through  which  this 
trail  finds  its  way.  For  the  first  few  hundred  miles  the 
eastern  part  of  the  road  of  old  wound  across  the  broad, 
treeless,  solemnly-silent,  level  plains.  Then  it  opened 
its  course  into  many  parallel  tracks  where  the  going  was 
soft  or  uncertain,  and  again  gathered  them  where  the 
road  was  once  more  hard  and  smooth.  It  more  or  less 
closely  follows  the  shifting  banks  of  the  sluggish  Arkan- 
sas River,  where  that  stream  in  soft  sand  may  spread  its 
waters  out  a  mile  wide  and  perhaps  a  few  feet  or  inches 


16  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

deep,  or  may  nearly  vanish  from  sight  only  to  reappear 
again,  a  bravely  flowing  stream  where  a  more  obstinate 
sub-soil  forces  its  waters  to  the  surface.  As  the  trail 
reaches  toward  the  mountains  the  snow-capped  summits 
of  Pike's  Peak  and  Long's  Peak  rise  in  view  and  keep  it 
company  through  the  many  crossings  of  streams,  bright 
flowing  from  the  snows  above,  and  watch  it  as  it  struggles 
up  the  rises  or  through  the  openings  of  the  foothills  until, 
with  one  supreme  effort,  it  climbs  to  the  summit  of  Raton 
Pass  and  descends  to  the  table  lands  to  the  south. 

Upon  this  trail,  not  far  from  Santa  Fe,  I  was  riding 
northward  in  i860,  with  the  intention  of  visiting  Bent's 
Fort  as  circumstances  permitted,  and  my  adventure- 
loving  disposition  found  convenient.  I  was  not  twenty 
years  of  age,  but,  like  most  boys  of  that  non-maturity, 
I  considered  myself  older  in  knowledge  than  a  grand- 
father of  this  or  any  other  generation.  Like  the  prodigal 
son  of  old,  I  had  wearied  of  the  husks  of  Mexican  and 
of  savage  life,  and,  like  him,  I  had  concluded  to  arise 
and  go,  not  to  my  father,  for  I  had  none,  but  to  the  land 
we  then  called  "God's  Country"  that  lay  east  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi River.  I  was  alone  with  a  traveling  outfit  of 
two  ponies,  one  of  which  I  rode  and  the  other  upon 
which  I  packed  my  camping  necessities  and  the  whole  of 
my  worldly  wealth,  except  the  buckskin  suit  and  prairie 
dogskin  cap  I  wore,  and  the  rifle  and  revolver  I  carried. 

I  have  described  my  outfit,  because  to  it  I  believe  I 
later  owed  my  life.  I  was  so  clothed,  not  from  any 
boyish  desire  for  cowboy  notority,  because  the  North 
American  cowboy  had  not  then  appeared.  He  was  a 
post  Civil-War  product  that  arose  after  Western  men 
had  discovered  there  was  money  to  be  made  by  running 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  17 

great  herds  of  cattle  over  the  plains  to  feed  upon  the 
grass  which  the  vanished  buffalo  millions  had  heretofore 
consumed.  The  cowboy  who  cared  for  these  cattle 
copied  the  trapper's  dress  I  was  wearing;  in  dress,  I  led, 
not  followed,  the  cattle  herder  of  the  plains.  This  ap- 
parel was  forced  upon  me  because  the  one  with  which  I 
had  left  the  States  was  long  since  worn  out,  and  buck- 
skin and  fur  were  at  that  time,  and  in  that  part  of  the 
country,  the  only  available  and  efficient  substitutes. 

I  was  still  south  of  the  Raton  Pass,  near  where  the 
trail  commenced  climbing  to  make  that  difficult  passage, 
and  my  course  still  lay  across  a  level  plain  that  reached 
away,  apparently  for  miles,  when  suddenly  I  drew  rein 
upon  the  edge  of  an  almost  perpendicular  drop  of  some 
hundreds  of  feet.  Here  lay  concealed  a  chasm,  con- 
taining a  valley  some  half  mile  in  width,  while  the  line 
and  elevation  of  the  plain  beyond  the  break  conformed 
perfectly  to  that  upon  which  I  stood.  This  valley  and 
chasm  had  been  worn  out  by  a  stream  that  was  one  of 
the  head  waters  of  the  Cimarron,  a  branch  of  the 
Canadian  River.  This  formation  is  quite  common  in 
this  "Mesa,"  the  table-land  south  of  the  Raton  Moun- 
tains reaching  into  Arizona  and  finding  its  highest  exem- 
plification in  and  around  the  Grand  Canon  of  Colorado. 
(See  illustrations  in  Chapter  XL) 

To  my  surprise,  I  found  camped  along  the  stream  in 
the  valley  several  trains  of  Mexicans,  who  apparently 
were  bound  for  the  States  but  who  seemed  to  have  been 
camping  here  for  some  days  at  least.  Evidently  there 
was  some  trouble  ahead,  and  it  was  absolutely  necessary 
that  I  should  know  what  it  was.  I  could  find  no  one  who 
could   talk   English,    and   my   Spanish   was   exceedingly 


18  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

weak.  Spanish  is  a  language  of  so  many  terminations 
and  inflections  which  an  English  tongue  fails  to  master, 
that  I  always  feared  getting  into  some  scrape  as  the  fel- 
low who,  leaning  up  to  his  Mexican  best  girl,  whispered 
softly,  "Mi  caro  hermoso,"  intending  to  call  her  his 
beautiful  beloved,  but  he  didn't  get  the  "caro"  just  right, 
and  instead  of  the  soft  words  of  love  he  called  her  his 
magnificent,  two  wheeled  cart.  The  result  may  be 
imagined.  With  his  disaster  in  mind,  I  always  talked 
English  when  I  could,  and  let  the  other  fellow  do  the 
guessing. 

But  necessity  knows  no  law ;  I  approached  a  bunch  of 
drivers  sitting  around  a  fire,  and  braced  myself  for  the 
ordeal. 

"Buenos  dias,  Senores,"  said  I. 

A  merry-faced  "bullwhacker,"  with  a  twinkle  in  his 
eye,  replied,  "Buenos  dias,  tu." 

That  was  a  facer :  I  had  given  them  the  compliments 
of  the  day  as  gentleman,  and  this  rapscallion  had  re- 
turned the  same  with  a  Tu,  as  though  I  had  been  a 
servant  or  chum  of  his. 

Well,  I'let  that  go,  but  tried  him  again.  "Por  que 
que  dais  vosotros  agui  por  que  no  subis  vosotros  mas 
alto?"     (Why  do  you  remain  here,  why  not  go  higher?) 

Then  followed  a  babel  of  replies,  with  much  violent 
gesticulation :  from  which  I  gathered  that  the  Comanche 
Indians  were  on  the  war  path,  that  the  trail  beyond  was 
running  red  with  blood,  that  everybody  in  the  mines  and 
mountains  and  in  Denver  had  been  murdered  and  scalped, 
and  the  whole  country  was  wiped  clean  of  white  men. 
Further,  that  they  were  here  waiting  for  an  escort  of 
cavalry  to  take  them  through  the  Comanche  country. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  19 

After  having  made  all  due  allowance  for  the  impul- 
sive Spanish-Indian  temperament,  I  thought  there  must 
be  some  foundation  for  all  this  furor  and  concluded  to 
"bide  a  wee"  myself,  and  so  I  found  a  comfortable  place 
and  made  camp.  I  write  "made  camp,"  although  I  know 
that  the  many  men  who  leave  the  cities  annually,  pos- 
sessing "light  camping  outfits"  that  require  trucks  to 
move,  would  scorn  the  idea  that  my  slight  preparations 
were  entitled  to  any  such  name.  Still  I  stand  by  my  posi- 
tion and  as  sustaining  evidence  bring  the  Indian,  the  old 
trapper,  and  the  many  scouts  and  others  who  spend  their 
life  in  the  open.  Most  of  these  city  people  never  get  out 
of  doors  and  back  to  nature  at  all.  They  simply  change 
their  housekeeping  from  wooden  or  brick  walls  to  canvas 
ones  and  require,  and  must  have,  all  the  delicacies  and 
conveniences  of  their  city  homes,  even  to  ice  and  their 
daily  milk  and  butter.  Not  so  the  old  plainsmen :  they 
generally  looked  with  disdain  upon  too  many  camp  con- 
veniences, and  for  pleasure,  comfort  and  expedition,  pre- 
ferred to  travel  with  loads  containing  only  necessities 
and  very  few  conveniences. 

I  think  my  outfit  was  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms : 

Provisions :     Flour,  salt,  and  baking  powder. 

Meat  I  expected  to  get  by  shooting. 

Bedding:  A  light  buffalo  robe  and  two-  blankets,  laid 
011  the  ground  with  saddle  for  pillow. 

Tent:  None.  In  pleasant  weather,  which  that  dry 
country  had  most  of  the  time,  I  slept  under  the  stars. 
In  stormy  weather  I  made  a  "dog  tent,"  such  as  soldiers 
use,  from  my  two  saddle  blankets,  and  got  under  them 
when  I  was  compelled  to. 


20  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Cooking  Utensils:  A  small,  long-handled  frying  pan, 
a  quart  cup,  a  tin  plate,  a  spoon  and  my  hunting  knife. 

Plenty  of  ammunition. 

Flint,  steel,  and  tinder. 

A  small  camping  axe. 

These  were  all  the  essentials  for  comfortable  travel 
for  me,  in  the  West.  This  bill  of  particulars  can  be 
added  to  as  one  wishes;  nearly  all  would  consider  tea, 
coffee,  sugar,  and  pork  essential,  but  I  did  not  use  the 
first  two,  which  required  the  third,  and  I  did  not  care  for 
the  last.  Matches  might  be  taken  if  convenient,  but 
should  not  be  relied  upon  on  account  of  exposure  to  the 
rain. 

The  flour  might  be  made  into  pancakes  or  baked  as 
bread  before  the  fire  in  the  frying  pan  or  in  the  ashes. 
Meat  might  be  broiled  on  a  forked  stick,  or  when  there 
was  plenty  of  time,  and  bread  was  being  baked,  it  might 
also  be  placed  in  the  ashes.  Should  one  be  going  into  a 
country  where  no  game  was  expected,  he  might  take 
the  time  and  "jerk"  a  supply  of  meat  to  last  him  through 
such   scarcity. 

Please  do  not  underestimate  the  old-time  method  of 
"baking  in  the  ashes"  done  by  our  ancestors  from  "the 
time  whereof  the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the 
contrary."  It  sounds  plebeian  and  slovenly,  but  it  is 
highly  satisfactory  and  absolutely  sanitary.  The  baking 
is  not  done  in  the  ashes,  but  in  the  coals ;  no  germ  could 
possibly  resist  this  trial  by  fire,  and  should  the  meat  or 
bread  be  wrapped  in  some  wet  covering,  and  care  be  given 
that  the  coals  cover  everything,  the  eatables  will  come  out 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  21 

with  even  the  covering  unburned,  and  be  as  clean  and 
pure  as  from  the  finest  oven,  and  of  flavor  superior  to 
any  stove-cooked  product. 

Taught  by  the  experience  of  one  long  summer  and 
over  a  thousand  miles  of  such  travel,  I  would  not  add 
another  item  to  my  equipage.  The  many  "light  camp- 
ing outfits"  I  have  seen  in  use  or  advertised,  usually 
seem  so  elaborate  and  cumbersome  to  me  that  all  pleasure 
in  traveling  with  them  would  be  destroyed.  I  have  ob- 
served that  the  more  one  has  moved  about,  whether  it  be 
as  sportsman,  soldier,  miner,  or  trapper,  the  less  equip- 
ment he  carries. 

For  several  days  I  "possessed  my  soul  with  patience," 
but  then  became  uneasy.  I  believed  it  useless  to  remain 
in  the  valley  waiting  for  the  cavalry  any  longer.  I  felt 
certain  there  were  enough  men  and  guns  in  the  crowd  to 
make  a  safe  organization,  provided  they  would  unite  and 
place  themselves  under  some  competent  command.  I 
endeavored  to  make  the  Mexicans  so  organize  and  pro- 
ceed, but  failing  to  do  so,  lost  my  temper  and  announced 
that,  do  what  they  would,  I  should  start  next  Monday 
morning. 

Thus  the  "die  was  cast"  and,  so  far  as  I  was  con- 
cerned, I  was  compelled  to  start  at  the  time  so  thought- 
lessly mentioned.  All  Sunday,  wherever  I  appeared,  the 
question  was  asked:  "Va  Vd  a  ir  manana?"  (Do  you  go 
tomorrow?) 

To  which  I  always  replied,  "Si,  manana  por  la  mana- 
na."    (Yes,  tomorrow  morning.) 

I  was  still  uncertain  but  hopeful  that  some  of  the 
Mexicans  would  go  along  with  me.     But  when  I  drove 


22  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

through  the  camp  on  starting  Monday  morning  the  only 
movements  my  way  were  discouraging  remarks  like 
these,  "Pcrderas  el  cranio  tuyo  manana,"  (You  will  lose 
your  scalp  tomorrow),  or  more  discouraging  still, 
"Cuando  hallaremos  el  caerpo  tuyo  le  enterraremos" 
(When  we  find  your  body  we  will  bury  it.) 

Thoroughly  provoked,  I  called  back,  "Adios,  Cobar- 
dcs"  (Good-bye,  cowards),  and  put  spurs  to  my  horse  to 
avoid  the  shower  of  stones  and  clubs  I  might  reasonably 
expect. 

Thus  alone  was  I  projected  into  a  hostile  Indian 
country,  bound  for  Bent's  Fort,  two  hundred  miles  away, 
the  first  place  on  the  way  to  the  States  where  I  could 
find  safety.  High  up  in  the  Raton  Pass  I  met  the  escort 
of  cavalry  for  which  the  Mexicans  were  waiting.  The 
commander  sent  for  me  and  inquired,  "What  crimes  have 
you  been  committing  in  New  Mexico  that  you  have  to 
risk  your  life  to  get  out  of  that  territory  alone,  at  this 
dangerous  time?" 

I  told  him  "I  had  committed  no  crime,  but  that  for 
the  last  week  or  so  I  had  been  with  a  bunch  of  cowards, 
and  I  thought  a  brave  Indian,  even  if  he  was  after  my 
scalp,  would  be  an  improvement  in  companionship." 

"Perhaps  so,"  he  said,  "but  you  will  not  go  twenty- 
four  hours  longer  without  losing  that  scalp  if  you  go  on. 
Better  come  back  with  me  and  go  through  under  my 
escort" 

This  I  should  have  done,  and  would  have  done,  had  I 
been  a  reasonable  being ;  but  I  was  a  pig-headed  boy  who 
preferred  the  risk  of  life  and  scalp,  to  returning  to  the 
jeers  and  chaffing  of  my  late  Mexican  companions.    Be- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  23 

sides  all  this,  the  fact  of  the  matter  was  that  the  risk  had 
given  me  an  unwonted  zest  for  the  trip.  I  thought  also 
that  I  might  be  able  to  put  up  such  a  bluff  that  the 
Indians  would  not  think  me  worth  killing;  a  hoped-for 
fact  that  would  only  be  a  repetition  of  an  event  that  oc- 
curred the  previous  summer  of  1859. 

This  event  throws  some  light  upon  the  method  and 
strategy  of  the  Indian  on  the  war  path  upon  which  I 
relied  for  safety,  and  therefore  I  tell  it.  I  was  then 
traveling  with  a  party  of  eleven :  three  men,  four  women, 
and  three  children,  all  born  and  brought  up  on  the  ex- 
treme western  border  and  all  from  birth,  with  the,  excep- 
tion of  myself,  acquainted  with  the  Indian.  I,  the 
eleventh,  a  Massachusetts  Yankee,  had  been  in  the  West 
only  some  five  years  and  as  comparatively  a  tenderfoot. 

Late  in  the  fall  we  were  in  New  Mexico  going  toward 
Arizona.  We  had  crossed  a  small  stream  and  stopped  on 
its  bank  for  dinner.  Suddenly,  and  without  warning,  a 
band  of  over  a  hundred  Comanche  Indians  rode  over  the 
near  hills,  following  our  tracks  upon  the  trail.  Upon 
seeing  us,  they  halted  a  moment,  then  came  on ;  part  of 
the  band  crossed  the  stream  above  and  circled  around  us ; 
others  crossed  below  and  circled  to  meet  the  upward 
squad,  and  some  remained  across  the  stream.  They  were 
a  war  party,  stripped,  painted,  and  feathered  for  the  war- 
path.    We  were  completely  at  their  mercy. 

Charley  Johnson,  our  oldest  man  and  undisputed 
leader,  seeing  the  plan  of  the  Indians,  gave  us  wordless 
and  nearly  motionless  directions  to  stand  by  our  arms  and 
appear  as  though  nothing  was  expected  to  happen. 
Therefore  when  the   war  party  halted,    facing  inward, 


24  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

they  saw  a  camp,  the  women  of  which  were  uncon- 
cernedly getting  dinner,  the  children  playing,  and  four 
men  loafing  carelessly  around  with  guns  in  their  hands. 
The  slightest  show  of  panic  among  the  women  or  chil- 
dren, or  of  unpreparedness  on  the  part  of  the  men,  would 
probably  have  been  fatal. 

We  said  to  the  war  party,  as  plainly  as  actions  could 
speak,  "You  are  a  mighty  fine  lot  of  warriors,  but  that 
does  not  concern  us  greatly,  because  we  are  friends,  and 
do  not  expect  to  be  interfered  with  by  you  or  any  of  your 
tribe."  The  warriors  could  see  for  themselves  that 
should  they  attack  us  they  would  lose  at  least  four  of 
their  number  by  the  first  discharge  of  our  rifles,  and  how 
many  more  afterwards  depended  upon  whether  or  not 
we  had  revolvers  and  how  quickly  they  could  silence  us. 
Evidently  the  warriors  were  anxious  to  begin  to  fight,  but 
the  chief  delayed  giving  the  order.  Finally  an  order  was 
given,  not  to  charge  us  but  to  dismount  and  turn  their 
ponies  loose;  this  was  done,  and  a  circle  of  dismounted 
warriors  now  encompassed  us. 

After  some  consultation  among  them,  six  of  the  war- 
riors led  by  their  chief  came  into  our  camp,  but  failed  to 
give  us  the  universal  "How"  of  greeting.  This  looked 
bad.  Charley,  however,  knew  what  Indian  etiquette  was, 
and  set  food  before  them.  The  chief  divided  the  food 
between  his  six  companions,  but  retained  nothing  for 
himself;  this  was  worse — he  had  declined  to  eat  with  us. 
The  duty  of  the  Indian  guest  to  eat  is  as  strong  as  that  of 
the  host  to  provide  the  food :  no  matter  how  many  smut- 
nose  papooses  or  straying  dogs  had  previously  eaten  from 
the  common  pot,  the  guest,  if  friendly,  must  eat.     So 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  25 

this  chief  was  either  holding  us  up  for  greater  presents  or 
declaring  his  hostility.  We  afterwards  learned  it  was  the 
latter. 

The  usual  emigrant,  hoping  to  rid  himself  of  the 
Indians,  would  at  this  point  have  given  nearly  every- 
thing in  the  camp,  but  Charley  knew  better;  he  knew  that 
to  submit  to  the  first  imposition  was  to  lose  all.  As  he 
refused  to  be  driven,  the  chief  and  his  squad  returned 
to  their  warriors. 

Again  they  approached  us,  this  time  as  traders.  The 
line  of  their  traffic,  however,  was  exceedingly  limited. 
They  wanted  to  buy  guns.  They  needed  them,  for,  I 
believe,  there  was  not  one  in  their  whole  command ;  but 
with  us  that  line  of  goods  had  suddenly  risen  in  value :  we 
had  none  to  sell,  notwithstanding  the  fabulous  prices  of- 
fered for  them. 

Thus,  for  over  an  hour,  we  pretended  unconcern  while 
death,  like  Damocles'  sword,  seemed  hanging  by  a  slender 
thread  over  our  heads.  At  last  a  signal  was  given,  ponies 
were  saddled  and  mounted,  their  ranks  gathered,  and  at 
another  signal  they  charged  with  a  whoop — away  towards 
the  mountains,  and  we  never  saw  them  more.  Months 
afterwards  the  riddle  was  solved  for  us.  The  Indians 
were  hostile  to  us,  as  the  chief  had  intimated,  but  this 
band  was  not  after  our  party,  it  was  after  a  detachment 
of  the  Apaches  that  had  run  off  a  drove  of  their  ponies. 

The  business  of  the  Indians  was  war,  and,  like  the 
white  man  in  his  business,  he  looked  where  the  greatest 
gains  and  the  smallest  losses  would  come.  The  chief 
probably  figured  that  it  would  spoil  the  afternoon  to 
wipe  out  our  camp,  distribute  the  plunder,  and  reorganize 
his  loosely  held  force;  meanwhile,  the  Apaches  would  get 


26  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

into  the  mountains  and  be  saved  from  pursuit.  Good 
business,  simply  good  business,  dictated  that,  if  we  were 
going  to  fight,  they  had  better  let  us  alone  at  present, 
press  on,  save  their  horses,  and  pick  us  up  when  they 
had  more  time  and  it  woul'd  pay  better.  Fortunately  for 
us,  they  overtook  and  recaptured  their  horses,  but  the 
Apaches  put  up  such  a  battle  that  the  Comanches  had  all 
the  fighting  they  wanted  for  that  particular  time. 

Now  to  apply  that  experience  to  my  present  condition, 
I  reasoned  that  if  I  could  only  make  the  Comanches 
again  think  it  would  be  bad  business  to  kill  me,  I  might 
get  through  safely. 

The  captain's  warning  did  me  a  good  turn;  it  made 
me  cautious.  The  Comanche  country  through  which  I 
expected  to  travel  as  soon  as  I  should  leave  the  Raton 
Mountains,  was  a  level  or  gently  rolling  plain,  here  and 
there  crossed  by  streams  of  running  water  fresh  from 
the  snows  of  the  mountains.  There  was  no  timber  on 
the  plains,  except  a  little  along  the  banks  of  the  water 
courses,  consequently  there  was  scant  cover  to  hide  an 
ambushed  Indian. 

My  general  outfit — two  ponies,  buckskin  suit,  rifle  and 
revolver — would  disguise  me  as  that  most  expert  and 
deadly  Indian  fighter  known,  the  American  trapper,  a 
man  whom  the  Indians  knew  it  was  foolish  to  attack, 
in  the  open  and  during  the  day,  with  their  bows,  arrows, 
and  tomahawks.  They  might  kill  such  a  man  as  I  was 
supposed  to  be,  but  it  would  be  at  the  expense  of  some  of 
their  warriors,  and  the  plunder  I  had  would  not  pay  the 
cost.  Obviously,  when  I  was  reported  to  some  chief  as 
being  on  the  trail,  the  best  policy  would  be  to  let  me  alone 
during  the  day,  and  pick  me  up  some  night  when  caught 
napping. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  27 

Feeling  certain  that  the  Comanches  would  never  sus- 
pect how  innocent  I  was,  but  would  class  me  as  a  veteran 
trapper,  I  felt  perfectly  safe  during  the  day.  It  only  re- 
mained to  provide  for  the  night.  Having  ridden  leisurely 
and  carelessly  during  the  day,  as  though  a  hostile  Indian 
was  not  in  the  United  States,  I  camped  near  sun  down  at 
some  usual  camping  place;  there  I  turned  my  ponies 
loose,  built  my  fire,  got  my  supper,  and  went  to  bed  as 
though  for  the  night.  I  slept,  with  one  eye  open,  until 
about  one  o'clock,  when  I  got  up  and  got  out  of  that 
camp  as  fast  as  whip  and  spur  could  drive  my  horses, 
nor  stopped  nor  stayed  for  anything  until  I  had  traveled 
at  least  twenty  miles.  Then  I  made  a  dry  camp  away 
from  both  water  and  trail.  Thus,  at  the  time  the  Indian 
usually  makes  his  nightly  attack — from  two  to  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  when,  if  ever,  man  and  beast  are 
asleep  and  off  guard —  I  made  it  a  point  to  be  at  least 
five  or  ten  miles  from  the  camp  I  first  made  and  travel- 
ing as  though  his  Satanic  majesty  was  after  me. 

In  this  manner,  loafing  along  by  day,  camping  and 
running  by  night,  I  finally  reached  my  longed-for  haven, 
Bent's  Fort.  To  my  great  surprise  and  pleasure,  I  found 
a  gathering  of  the  friendly  Cheyenne  and  Arapahoe  tribes 
of  Indians  surrounding  the  fort,  their  number  so  numer- 
ous that  they  covered  the  river  valley  and  ranged  through 
the  trees  of  Big  Timber  for  miles. 

Whether  my  deserted  camp  was  ever  visited  by  the 
Comanches,  I  know  not.  This  ride  through  a  hostile 
Indian  country  was  a  foolhardy  undertaking,  later  dis- 
coveries proving  it  more  dangerous  than  I  had  supposed. 
It  was  a  trip  I  never  would  have  taken  had  I  cultivated 
the  habit — no,  I  will  not  say  habit ;  it  is  something  higher  ; 


28  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

let  me  say  religion  —  of  the  primitive  old-time  Sioux 
Indian  warrior.  He,  in  such  a  crisis  as  I  met  at  Raton 
Pass,  retired  alone,  shut  out  all  disturbing  thought,  and 
in  absolute  silence  communed  with  his  "Great  Mystery'' 
until  his  mind  was  settled  and  his  course  seemed  clear. 
This  almost  daily  habit  of  the  old  Sioux  Indian  is,  to  me, 
a  matter  of  great  interest;  it  seems  to  be  in  continua- 
tion or  memory  of  his  first  great  silence,  when,  follow- 
ing the  age  of  adolescence  and  before  he  is  made  a  war- 
rior, having  purified  his  body  with  the  Indian  steambath, 
naked,  save  for  moccasins  and  breech  cloth,  without  food 
or  drink,  he  stations  himself  upon  the  height  of  some 
summit,  and,  facing  the  rising  sun,  shutting  out  all 
worldly  thought,  he  there  stands  motionless,  perhaps  for 
several  days  and  nights,  while  his  soul  seeks  the  Great 
Mystery.  What  visions  he  may  there  see,  what  thoughts 
may  come  to  him,  what  resolutions  he  may  there  make, 
no  one  may  ask  and  he  seldom  tells,  unless  some  public 
act  may  be  connected  therewith. 

The  Indian,  thus  in  his  primitive  simplicity,  seems 
here  to  have  found  a  great  religious  or  mind-moving 
principle.  Christ  retired  alone  to  the  desert,  and  com- 
manded his  followers  to  pray  in  secret ;  and  today  I  can 
find  no  difference  between  the  great  silence  of  the  old 
Sioux  and  the  deep  silence  of  the  Church  of  the  New 
Thought  that  is  now  rapidly  spreading.  The  old  Sioux 
devotee  went  to  the  mountain  top  or  deep  forest  to  be 
alone;  the  new  devotee,  to  obtain  a  similar  environment, 
must  go  to  his  private  room.  The  first  sought  commu- 
nion with  his  Great  Mystery ;  the  last  with  the  Infinite — 
a  difference  of  condition  and  nomenclature  only,  but  an 
identity  of  act,  of  purpose,  and  desired  accomplishment. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN 


29 


The  Tunnelled  Rock 
Head  of  the  Irrigation  Project,  Arkansas  River 

CHAPTER  II 


THE  BLANKET  INDIANS  AS  I  KNEW  THEM 

As  I  stood  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  fort  in  the  spring 
of  19 18,  and  looked  northwest  at  the  broad  valley  of  the 
Arkansas  River  that  reached  miles  and  miles  away  to- 
ward the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  contrast  between  the 
present  view  and  the  one  that  was  first  presented  to  me 
fifty-eight  years  before,  was  almost  unbelievable.  Then, 
in  the  long  ago,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  the  valley 
was  covered  with  the  tepees  of  the  Indians,  their  droves 
of  ponies  and  their  people;  now,  in  1918,  by  the  farms, 
homes,  and  herds  of  domestic  cattle  of  the  white  man. 
In  the  foreground,  a  modern,  iron  bridge  carries  an 
automobile  trail  across  the  river.  At  the  left,  an  immense 
dam  stops  the  river  where  the  rock  of  the  bluff  has  been 


30  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

tunneled,  and  an  irrigation  ditch  flows  away,  reaching 
eighty-six  miles  and  watering  over  eighty  thousand  acres 
with  the  farms,  towns,  and  villages  covering  them. 

The  Indians  I  met  here,  in  i860,  were  still  "blanket 
Indians"  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  They  wore  no 
discarded  civilized  costume,  but  were  dressed  in  their 
own  buckskin,  beads,  and  feathers.  They  carried  very 
few  guns  and  were  armed  almost  entirely  with  their  own 
primitive  weapons.  I  doubt  if  half  a  dozen  In  the  whole 
two  nations  there  encamped  could  speak  English,  more 
than  to  utter  the  universal  "How"  of  greeting.  Yet 
trading,  and  visiting,  and  correspondence  between  the 
whites  of  the  fort  and  the  reds  of  the  plains  was  constant 
and  active,  if  not  always  pleasing  and  understandable, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  sign-language  was  necessarily  used 
between  them,  and  all  were  not  equally  expert  in  its 
gesticulation  and  interpretation. 

To  a  "tenderfoot"  like  myself  it  was  intensely  interest- 
ing to  see  a  knot  of  Indians  from  different  tribes,  mixed 
perhaps  with  a  few  whites,  seated  in  a  circle  on  the 
ground  and  conversing  gravely  and  earnestly  on  some 
important  subject,  or  laughing  and  joking  on  some 
trivial  matter,  while  not  a  word  was  spoken,  sign  lan- 
guage alone  conveying  the  ideas  circling  around. 

As  good  luck  would  have  it,  I  possessed  some  knowl- 
edge that  the  commandant  at  the  fort  needed,  and  he 
did  not  have  to  use  much  eloquence  or  present  strong 
inducements  to  get  me  to  stay  during  the  pending  negotia- 
tions that  had  called  this  gathering. 

It  is  just  as  good  a  time  now  as  any  to  say  that,  dur- 
ing my  stay  with  these  people,  I  never  was  more  kindly 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  31 

and  courteously  treated;  never  have  I  seen  apparently 
better  conducted  homes,  nor  happier  children;  never  a 
larger  per  cent  of  athletic,  well-put-up,  young  men,  nor 
sturdy,  well-built,  modest  maidens,  than  among  these 
Indians.  I  fully  believe,  what  better  men  than  I,  with 
better  means  of  knowing,  have  said,  that  the  "North 
American  Indian  was  the  best  primitive  people  that  ever 
inhabitated  any  portion  of  this  world."  I  became  an 
admirer  of,  formed  a  sincere  friendship  for  these  tribes, 
and  parted  from  them  with  regret.  I  saw  many  of  their 
ceremonial  and  other  dances,  and  I  think  the  most 
beautiful  sight  of  my  life  was  presented  when,  one 
evening,  their  maidens,  dresesd  in  perfectly  white,  bead- 
ornamented,  antelope-skin  dresses,  performed  a  squaw 
dance  of  significance  unknown  to  me. 

These  Indians  were  very  nearly  in  their  primitive 
state,  and  I  found  them  so  different  from  the  Indians  as 
they  are  supposed  to  be  by  a  large  majority  of  our  white 
people,  that,  in  justice  to  them,  I  feel  compelled  to  state 
my  opinion  of  some  of  their  habits  and  characteristics — 
an  opinion  found  at  this  and  other  meetings  and  con- 
firmed by  what  others,  who  know  them  better  than  I, 
have  testified. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  Indian  is  shy,  silent,  unde- 
monstrative, even  morose,  and  incapable  of  seeing  a  joke. 
This  is  true  when  he  is  among  strangers  or  those  he  does 
not  trust,  but  when  among  friends  and  those  he  trusts 
nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  I  found  him 
to  be  exceedingly  happy,  humorous  and  friendly.  Doctor 
Eastman,  a  Sioux  Indian  himself,  brought  up  in  Sitting 
Bull's  camp  until  early  manhood,  must  certainly  know 
whereof  he  testified,  when  he  wrote:  "I  don't  believe  I 


32  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

ever  heard  a  real  hearty  laugh  away  from  an  Indian 
fireside,  and  whole  evenings  were  spent  in  laughing  with 
them  until  I  could  laugh  no  more." 

It  was  thought  that  the  Indian  had  no  education. 
Wrong  again :  it  was  of  the  very  best,  not  for  our  purp- 
ose, but  for  his  needs.  If  it  be  true,  as  I  have  seen  as- 
serted, that  Napoleon's  military  ideas  were  first  con- 
ceived in  his  mother's  womb,  then  it  is  true  that  the 
Indian's  education  begins  months  before  he  is  born.  The 
expectant  mother  is  taught  to  retire,  and  in  her  mind  to 
dwell  upon  the  heroic  and  patriotic  deeds  of  her  ances- 
tors. After  birth,  the  baby's  lullabies  are  all  of  brave 
deeds  and  generous  giving.  At  five  the  mother  and  grand- 
mother take  charge  of  the  girl,  the  father  and  grand- 
father of  the  boy,  and  both  are  taught  in  accomplish- 
ments that  will  best  advance  the  children  and  conserve 
the  highest  good  of  their  tribe.  The  boy  is  taught  to  be  a 
hunter  and -a  warrior,  not  for  himself,  but  for  his  tribe; 
the  girl  is  taught  to  be  a  homekeeper  and  a  mother,  the 
last  so  efficiently  that  when  her  great  time  comes  she 
retires  alone,  to  some  secluded  spot,  and  there  remains 
until  she  can  return  bearing  the  fruition  of  love,  her 
babe,  in  her  arms.  Doctor  Eastman,  although  he  gradu- 
ated with  honors  at  one  of  our  best  colleges  and 
medical  schools,  considers  that  the  most  valuable  part 
of  his  education  was  received  before  he  was  sixteen  years 
old  in  an  Indian  camp. 

The  primitive  Indian  was  hospitable  and  generous. 
His  hospitality  extended  to  all  who  entered  his  camp, 
be  they  friend,  stranger,  or  even  foe;  and  he  would 
turn  out  his  warriors  to  protect  such  guests,  if  need 
there  be.     His  generosity  often  found  an  end  only  when 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  33 

he  had  impoverished  himself  by  liberal  giving.  That  his 
hospitality  and  protection  may  be  tribal,  as  well  as  per- 
sonal, was  proved  by  a  comrade  of  mine.  He  was  a  con- 
tractor, who  had  engaged  to  grade  a  portion  of  a  rail- 
road through  a  certain  part  of  South  Dakota  containing 
the  Sisseton  Sioux  reservation.  Soon  after  commencing 
his  work,  several  big  Sioux  came  to  him  and  one  of  them, 
touching  him  with  his  finger,  said,  "Yon — sojer — Daven- 
port!' Then  John  realized  his  condition,  and  he  told  me 
that  he  "never  was  so  badly  scared  in  his  life." 

When  the  contractor  was  in  the  army,  his  duty  at 
Davenport  was  guarding  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  war- 
riors who  had  been  condemned  to  death  for  the  murders 
and  atrocities  committed  at  the  great  outbreak  of  Indians 
at  New  Ulm,  Minnesota,  in  1862.  Our  kind-hearted 
Lincoln  would  permit  only  forty  of  these  to  be  executed, 
and  now  my  comrade  found  himself  alone  with  his  whole 
grading  crew  in  the  reservation  and  at  the  mercy  of 
the  two  hundred  and  ten  "fiendish  devils"  who  had  been 
turned  loose. 

He  tried  to  get  released  from  the  contract,  but  could 
not;  he  endeavored  to  get  someone  to  take  it  off  his 
hands — nobody  wanted  it.  Finally,  as  every  cent  he  had 
was  tied  up  in  the  job,  he  concluded  to  put  it  through 
even  though  it  should  be  the  last  thing  he  would  ever  do. 
In  describing  the  completion  of  this  work  to  me  after- 
wards, he  said,  "Never  in  all  my  railroad  contracting 
did  I  experience  so  little  trouble  or  lose  so  few  things  as 
across  the  reservation.  I  did  not  lose  so  much  as  a  linch- 
pin on  the  whole  job." 


34  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  facts  were  he  had  been  halfway  decent  to  those 
Indians  as  a  guard,  and  they  had  not  forgotten  it.  Their 
"You-sojer-Davenport"  had  been  intended  as  the  wel- 
come of  a  host,  not  the  defiance  of  an  enemy.  His  ig- 
norance of  the  Indian  language,  and  the  Indian's  lack  of 
English,  had  cost  my  comrade  needless  apprehension. 

Regarding  the  social  position  of  the  Indian  woman, 
many  white  people  believe  she  was  almost  a  slave.  What- 
ever she  may  have  become  since  the  white  man's  laws 
have  robbed  her  of  her  property,  her  genealogical  pres- 
tige, and  made  a  wreck  of  her  social  position,  I  will  not 
discuss,  but  in  old  times  and  under  tribal  customs  noth- 
ing could  be  farther  from  the  fact. 

She  owned  the  home  and  domestic  property — the  men 
only  furnished  subsistence  and  protection  to  it — and 
young  Indian  bucks  and  lordly  warriors  had  to  step 
around  her  wigwam  as  she  bade.  This  property  des- 
cended by  clan  law  to  her  heirs  and  not  to  his;  thus  at 
her  death  the  bereaved  widower  lost  not  only  his  wife 
but  perhaps  his  home.  The  Indian  was  careful  to  main- 
tain the  purity  of  his  blood  and  was  as  proud  of  his 
ancestry  as  an  Englishman,  but  with  the  red  man  the 
line  of  ancestry  descended  through  the  female,  not  the 
male.  The  honor  of  the  tribe  was  in  the  woman's  hands 
and  careful  and  proud  was  she  to  maintain  it.  The  un- 
married women  held  their  virgin  feasts  wherein  they 
challenged  the  world  to  cloud  their  honor.  Woe  to  the 
girl  whose  virginity  was  challenged  and  the  charge  made 
good,  and  twice  woe  to  the  brave  who  made  a  challenge 
which  he  failed  to  prove.  But  the  white  man  changed  all 
this.     He  took  hunting-ground  away  from  the  warrior, 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  35 

made  him  a  lazy  loafer,  gave  to  him  the  woman's  prop- 
erty, and  placed  the  honor  of  the  tribe  in  his  hands,  not 
in  the  woman's.  Then  she  fell.  "When  she  fell,  the 
tribe  fell  with  her." 

Another  practice  contrary  to  the  education  of  the 
primitive  Indian  was  that  of  being  paid  for  services  done 
or  hospitality  rendered.  It  was  foreign  to  all  his  training 
and  habits.  He  was  brought  up  with  the  thought  of 
service  and  self-sacrifice  to  his  tribe,  to  his  family,  and 
to  his  guests.  He  served  with  no  thought  of  property 
reward.  So  long  as  this  idea  remained  true,  the  Medicine 
Man  retained  a  high  character ;  he  gave  the  best  advice 
and  used  for  his  patients  the  best  known  remedies  with- 
out remuneration.  But  when  the  idea  of  healing  for  pay 
became  prevalent,  that  office  became  a  fraud  of  the  worst 
type. 

The  first  natural  conclusion  of  the  Indian,  when  he 
learned  that  the  white  man  bought  and  sold  his  services, 
was  that  anything  he  had  was  for  sale.  This  idea  caused 
much  amusement  for  us  men  and  annoyance  for  the  two 
girls  who  were  in  the  1859  party  heretofore  described. 
During  that  summer  we  were  traveling  up  the  north 
branch  of  the  Platte  river,  and  through  the  Sioux  country 
from  Fort  Kearney  to  Fort  Laramie.  Soon  after  we  left 
Fort  Kearney,  Indian  swains  began  to  appear  in  camp  and 
along  the  trail,  proving  their  worth  and  dexterity  by  ex- 
hibiting their  horsemanship  and  athletic  ability,  and  offer- 
ing ponies,  many  ponies,  in  trade  for  the  girls  as  in- 
tended wives.  This  continued,  and  the  girls  were  rapidly 
increasing  in  value ;  and  I  do  not  know  how  many  ponies 
they  would  have  brought  had  not  an  occurrence  taken 
place  which  stopped  the  whole  proceeding. 


36  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

This  happened  near  Scott's  Bluff,  which  reared  its 
precipitous  sides  hundreds  of  feet  from  the  level  plain 
upon  the  south  side  of  the  river.  It  was  the  Fourth  of 
July,  and  we  decided  to  celebrate  it  by  a  day's  rest.  The 
two  older  men  took  their  rifles  and  went  after  antelope ; 
George  and  I,  the  two  younger,  concluded  to  wade  across 
the  river  and  investigate  the  bluffs.  Thus  the  camp  was 
left  with  only  the  women  and  children.  Just  at  this  time 
a  band  of  Sioux  came  and  entered  into  possession. 

Finding  all  the  men  gone,  they  expected  the  women 
would  in  their  terror  give  them  everything  they  de- 
manded. But  they  were  disappointed;  they  had  found  a 
camp  of  border  women,  who  would  give  them  nothing  on 
demand.  When  they  began  to  get  ugly  about  it,  the 
grandmother  in  the  group  concluded  she  would  drive 
them  out  of  camp.  She  retired  into  one  of  the  wagons 
with  a  pitcher  of  water  and  a  bottle  of  ink;  then  after 
having  made  moans  of  suffering  enough  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  Indians,  she  opened  the  front  of  the 
wagon  top,  motioned  one  of  the  girls  to  bring  her  a 
wash-basin,  and  then  emptied  her  mouth  of  the  inky 
water  wherewith  she  had  filled  it.  This  "black  vomit" 
was  enough;  visions  of  small-pox  and  every  other  disease, 
known  and  unknown,  terrified  the  mighty  warriors.  They 
knew  now  why  there  were  no  men  around — we  were  all 
dead  and  buried.  Immediately  they  deserted  camp.  They 
stopped  not  on  the  order  of  their  going.  Neither  money, 
persuasion,  nor  force,  would  have  induced  any  one  of 
them  to  take  the  smallest  thing  from  our  camp  with 
them;  nor  did  they  ever  return  while  we  were  in  their 
country. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  37 

In  his  creed  the  Indian  recognized  spirit  in  all  things, 
but  between  him  and  his  Great  Mystery  he  allowed  no 
priest,  person  or  entity  to  come.  Before  this  Great 
Mystery  he  stood  silent  and  submissive,  but  to  no  other 
person,  being,  or  thing,  dead  or  alive,  did  he  bow  the 
knee   of    homage. 

This  Great  Mystery  or  spirit  is  with  him  at  all  times; 
daily  he  faces  the  rising  sun,  and  alone  communes  with 
it ;  not  a  deer  does  he  kill,  not  a  stream  does  he  cross,  not 
a  striking  landscape  does  he  meet  but  he  is  conscious  of 
its  presence ;  and  even  the  housewife,  when  she  places 
the  steaming  meal  before  her  waiting  family,  softly 
whispers,  "Spirit  partake."  In  some  tribes  a  piece  of 
meat  is  placed  on  the  blazing  coals  and  the  meal  is  not 
eaten  until  the  "offering"  is  consumed. 


38  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  III 

A  TREATY  MADE  AND  BROKEN 

The  Indian  nations  I  found  at  Bent's  Fort  had  gath- 
ered for  no  holiday  purpose ;  it  was  a  question  of  life  and 
death  that  had  brought  them  together;  not  personal  life 
and  death — the  Indian  cares  little  for  that,  but  the  life 
and  death  of  his  tribe,  for  which  he  cares  everything. 
During  the  preceding  year  over  sixty  thousand  emigrants 
had  crossed  the  Indian  lands  and  gone  into  the  mines. 
These  emigrants  had  ruthlessly  slaughtered  the  buffalo ; 
cut  down  and  destroyed  the  scant  and  valuable  timber 
along  the  streams ;  and  worse  than  all,  had  burned  the 
fall  grass,  thereby  leaving  the  Indian's  ponies  and  the 
buffalo  to  starve  during  the  winter. 

If  this  state  of  things  should  continue,  the  Indians 
saw  nothing  ahead  of  them  but  starvation  and  death. 
They  wanted  their  "Great  Father  at  Washington"  to  help 
them  arrange  matters  so  that  they  could  settle  down, 
raise  crops  and  live  more  or  less  like  the  white  man.  This 
was  necessary,  because  their  game  was  vanishing  and 
their  country  rapidly  being  ruined  for  the  life  they  had 
hitherto  led.  The  "Great  Father"  had  heard  their  re- 
quest, and  it  was  to  meet  commissioners  appointed  by 
him  to  consider  the  subject  that  they  were  now  gathered. 

Never  was  there  a  more  harmonious  meeting  than 
between  the  commissioners  thus  appointed  and  these 
Indians.  The  Indians  freely  gave  up  all  their  lands  north 
of  the  Arkansas  River,  including  the  rich  mines  in  the 
Rocky  mountains,  and  were  to  receive  therefor  a  small 
portion  of  the  land  they  had  ceded,  together  with  tools, 
improvements,  and  instruction  which  would  enable  them 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  39 

to  cultivate  the  land  for  their  subsistence.  The  com- 
missioner's report,  made  and  on  file  in  Washington, 
reads,  "It  has  not  fallen  to  my  lot  to  visit  any  Indians 
who  seemed  more  disposed  to  comply  with  the  wishes 
of  the  government  than  the  Cheyennes  and  Arapahoes. 
Notwithstanding  that  they  were  fully  aware  of  the  rich 
mines  discovered  in  their  country,  they  were  disposed  to 
yield  up  their  claims  without  reluctance.  They  certainly 
deserve  the  fostering  care  of  the  government,  and  should 
be  liberally  encouraged  in  their  new  sphere  of  life." 

After  the  conference  ended  the  Indians  broke  camp 
and  dispersed,  thinking  that  their  troubles  were  over  and 
that  the  way  to  peace,  prosperity,  and  plenty  for  their 
tribes  was  assured.  This  happy  consummation  I  cer- 
tainly believe  would  have  ensued,  had  not  the  govern- 
ment engaged  in  a  great  Civil  War  and  failed  to  make 
good  on  its  part.  One  year  passed,  and  nothing  was 
done ;  two  years  passed,  and  only  a  surveyor  appeared ; 
three  years  passed,  and  still  no  farms,  not  even  an  irriga- 
tion ditch ;  no  promised  farmer,  or  blacksmith,  or  houses, 
or  school,  or  grist-mill — nothing  but  a  survey,  and  no 
two  tribes  of  Indians,  however  well-meaning,  treaty- 
keeping,  and  economical,  can  live  long  on  surveyor's 
stakes  and  governmental  lines.  Four  years  passed,  and 
nothing  was  done.  The  great  buffalo  herds  were  gone; 
the  tribes  were  broken  up  into  small  bands,  hunting  game 
wherever  they  could,  some  of  them  actually  starving  for 
necessities,  and  many  feeling  that,  if  die  they  must,  it 
was  better  to  die  with  a  full  stomach  on  the  war  path 
than  of  starvation  and  submission  to  injustice.  Some  did 
commence  depredations,  but  many  were  still  peaceable 
and  friendly. 


4o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  Governor  of  Colorado  called  for  military  aid  in 
June  1864,  but  at  the  same  time  sent  a  proclamation  to  all 
Indians  who  were  friendly  to  come  to  places  he  would 
designate,  where  they  would  be  assured  of  rations,  safety, 
and  protection.  Complying  with  this  proclamation  the 
two  chiefs,  Black  Kettle  and  White  Antelope,  proved  and 
tried  friends  of  the  whites,  with  their  tribes  and  some 
others,  all  being  the  same  Indians  who  made  the  treaty 
in  i860  at  Bent's  Fort,  came  to  that  place,  then  called 
Fort  Lyon,  surrendered  their  arms,  made  their  camp  in 
the  place  directed  by  the  commander  of  the  fort,  and  in 
every  way  complied  with  all  orders  and  suggestions 
which  he  made. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  good  faith  and  helplessness 
of  these  Indians ;  notwithstanding  the  honor  of  the 
United  States  government,  plighted  by  its  commissioned 
officers ;  notwithstanding  the  pledged  word  of  the  state 
of  Colorado,  as  given  by  its  governor  in  his  proclama- 
tion; in  spite  of  all  principles  of  justice  and  mercy,  of 
equity  and .  prudence,  these  friends  of  ours  were  at- 
tacked on  the  morning  of  November  27,  1864,  by  the 
First  Colorado  Cavalry  under  the  command  of  Colonel 
J.  M.  Chivington,  and  men,  women,  and  children  were 
murdered  and  mutilated  without  mercy.  When  the  attack 
commenced  White  Antelope  thought  it  a  mistake,  and 
came  running  toward  the  soldiers,  holding  up  his  hand  and 
calling  in  English,  "Stop!  Stop!"  When  he  saw  that 
there  was  no  mistake  and  that  it  was  a  deliberate  attack, 
he  folded  his  arms  and  waited  until  he  was  shot  down. 
Then  the  outrage  proceeded  to  its  brutal  termination. 

Some  may  think  this  is  an  exaggeration  of  some  East- 
ern sentimentalist  gone  daft  on  the  Indian  question.     I 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  41 

wish  they  were  right.  Congress  appointed  a  commission 
to  investigate  this  horror,  and  the  details  there  testified 
to  I  care  not  to  write — they  are  too  horrible.  Suffice  it 
to  say,  that  this  commission  reported,  "It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  beings  in  the  form  of  men,  disgracing  the 
uniform  of  United  States  service  and  officers,  should 
commit  such  acts  of  cruelty  and  barbarity."  And  of 
Colonel  Chivington,  they  reported,  "He  deliberately 
planned  and  executed  a  foul  and  dastardly  massacre, 
which  would  disgrace  the  veriest  savage  among  those 
who  are  the  victims  of  his  cruelty." 

I  care  not  to  blister  these  pages  with  further  detail  of 
the  brutalities  testified  to  before  this  committee  for  they 
seem  so  unbelievable.  Anyone  who  cares  to  verify  the 
report  or  follow  the  tragedy  further  can  find  it  fully  set 
out  in  two  hundred  pages  of  Volume  II,  Senate  Docu- 
ments for  1866-67,  or  he  can  find  the  essential  facts  in 
condensed  form  in  Helen  Hunt  Jackson's  Century  of 
Dishonor.  In  1868,  a  commission,  of  which  General  W. 
T.  Sherman  was  a  prominent  member,  also  alluding  to 
this  ''Sand  Creek  Massacre,"  says  "It  scarcely  has  its 
parallel  in  the  records  of  Indian  barbarity ;  fleeing  women 
holding  up  their  hands  and  praying  for  mercy  were  shot 
down,  infants  were  killed  and  scalped  in  derision,  men 
tortured  and  mutilated  in  a  manner  that  would  put  to 
shame  the  savages  of  Central  Africa.  No  one  will  be 
astonished  that  a  war  ensued  that  cost  the  government 
thirty  millions  of  dollars  and  carried  conflagration  and 
death  into  the  border  settlement." 

When  the  few  survivors  who  escaped  from  the  "Sand 
Creek  Massacre"  reached  their  friends  and  relatives, 
or  course  they  all,  as  reported  by  the  last  commission, 


42  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

went  upon  the  war  path.  What  else  could  they  do?  They 
considered  the  action  of  Colonel  Chivington  and  his 
men  as  the  act  and  sentiment  of  the  whole  white  nation. 
They  naturally  resolved  that  if  death  was  their  doom, 
whether  they  were  at  war  or  at  peace,  it  was  better — 
far  better — to  die  fighting  like  warriors,  for  the  life  and 
liberty  of  their  women  and  children,  than  to  be  butchered 
in  a  so-called  peaceful  encampment,  with  those  dear  ones 
defendlessly  clinging  to  them  for  aid.  Who  can  blame 
them  ?     Not  I ;  not  you. 

The  Indians  were  wrong,  certainly  wrong.  The  "Sand 
Creek  Massacre"  did  not  represent  the  feelings  of  the 
white  people.  The  curse  of  our  race  war  with  the  Indian 
from  the  time  the  Puritans  landed  on  Plymouth  Rock 
and  the  Cavaliers  at  Jamestown,  down  to  and  including 
the  very  moment  that  I  am  writing  these  words,  has 
been  the  unjust,  unsportsmanlike  idea — harbored  equally 
by  the  white  men  and  the  red — of  holding  a  whole  race 
of  well-meaning  and  peaceful  people  responsible  for  the 
acts,  or  accidents,  of  a  foolish  or  malignant  few.  It  is 
this  wicked  idea  that  has  marked  in  blood  the  white  man's 
progress  and  the  Indian's  retreat  across  our  land  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the 
Gulf.  It  is  this  that  has  made  three-fourths  of  our 
wars,  battles,  and  massacres  on  both  sides  throughout  our 
history.  Strange  it  is  that  an  educated,  intelligent  nation 
like  ourselves  cannot  rise  above  this  crudity ;  but  it  is 
not  strange  that  the  uneducated  Indian,  knowing  really 
nothing  of  the  world,  should  be  actuated  by  it. 

In  this  case  the  people  of  Colorado  had  suffered  de- 
predations from  some  Indian  bands  of  wrong  doers,  and 
this  massacre  was  their  reprisal  and  revenge,  a  revenge 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  43 

inflicted,  not  on  the  guilty,  but  on  the  innocent.  The 
militia  of  Colorado  was  not,  in  this  case,  sustained  by 
the  general  government ;  but,  strange  to  say,  our  Govern- 
ment itself,  at  Washington,  deliberately  made  an  equally 
bad  mistake  that  cost  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  whites, 
and  forty  millions  of  dollars  in  money. 

In  1857,  Inkpaduta,  with  a  band  of  about  a  dozen, 
committed  fiendish  outrages  at  Spirit  Lake,  Iowa,  not 
far  from  where  I  then  lived.  He  and  his  band  were  a 
bad  lot,  outcasts  from  the  Sioux  tribe  and  not  recognized 
by  them,  and  yet  the  Government  held  the  whole  Sioux 
nation  responsible  for  the  outrage.  It  weighed  nothing 
with  the  Government  in  extenuation  that  these  men  had 
been  separated  from  the  nation  so  long  that  they  had  been 
lost  sight  of,  both  by  the  Sioux  tribe  and  the  Government 
itself,  and  that  they  had  been  refused  payment  in  1856, 
at  Redwood,  because  they  were  not  Sioux.  It  counted  for 
nothing  that  it  was  currently  reported  among  the  whites 
where  I  lived — and  I  believe  the  report  was  true — that 
the  outbreak  was  almost  forced  upon  the  Indians  by  the 
whites  taking  away  their  guns  and  leaving  them  in  winter 
without  means  to  secure  game  to  keep  them  from  starva- 
tion. It  counted  nothing  that  the  Sioux  did  send  out  an 
expedition  that  killed  four  of  these  Indians  and  captured 
three,  and  that  they  tried  their  best  to  bring  in  all  of  the 
band,  but  found  it  impossible.  In  spite  of  all  this,  the 
Government  held  the  nation  responsible  and  stopped 
their  annuities  and  rations.  This  injustice  on  our  part 
had  much  to  do  with,  if  it  was  not  a  prime  cause  of,  the 
Sioux  outbreak  at  New  Ulm,  Minnesota,  in  1862,  in 
which  nearly  a  thousand  white  men,  women  and  children 
were  killed ;  millions  of   dollars  in  property  destroyed ; 


44  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

nameless  outrages  committed;  and  which,  as  I  said  be- 
fore, cost  us  forty  millions  of  dollars  to  subdue. 

Was  our  Government's  treatment  of  these  wards  of 
ours  exceptional  or  typical?  In  its  most  brutal  aspect  I 
am  glad  to  say  it  was  exceptional,  but  in  its  general  treat- 
ment I  blush  to  say  it  was  typical.  As  time  has  pro- 
gressed and  reached  nearer  to  our  present  epoch,  our 
Government  has  grown  more  and  more  liberal  and  just 
in  its  Indian  policy ;  but  even  within  my  memory  Colonel 
Henry  Inman,  Assistant  Quartermaster  U.  S.  A.,  by  no 
means  an  Indian-lover,  was  compelled  to  admit,  "That 
for  more  than  a  third  of  a  century,  passed  on  the  plains 
and  in  the  mountains,  he  had  never  known  a  war  with 
hostile  tribes  that  was  not  caused  by  broken  faith  on 
the  part  of  the  United  States  or  its  agents." 

I  know  of  but  two  treaties  made  between  the  white 
men  and  the  Indians  which  have  been  kept  in  good  faith 
by  the  first  party. 

These  were  not  treaties  by  the  Government,  but  by 
communities:  the  Quakers  in  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
Mormons  in  Utah.  In  both  of  these  cases,  the  Indians 
proved  true  to  the  contract. 

The  result  of  these  broken  treaties  is,  that  the  Indian 
has  been  rapidly  passing  even  during  my  life  time;  and 
his  going  is,  any  way  it  may  be  viewed,  a  tragedy.  In 
1840,  at  the  commencement  of  my  "One  Man's  Life 
Time,"  the  red  man  had  not  felt  the  devastating  touch  of 
the  white  man  west  of  the  Mississippi  River  except  in  the 
present  state  of  Louisiana.  Through  all  the  valleys  of 
the  Red,  the  Arkansas,  the  Platte,  and  the  Missouri 
Rivers,  together  with  all  the  country  west  of  the  Rocky 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  45 

Mountains,  their  tribal  life  had  not  been  disturbed,  and 
their  hunting  grounds  had  not  been  molested.  They  were 
still  living  a  free,  happy,  and  prosperous  life  as  they 
understood  it ;  and  this  method  of  living  was  largely  true 
even  as  late  as  i860,  when  I  traveled  among  them  on  the 
western  plains.  East  of  the  Mississippi  River,  all  north 
of  Chicago  and  west  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  also  in  some 
other  places  the  Indians  were  practically  in  the  same 
condition. 

How  many  Indians  there  were  in  the  United  States 
originally  nobody  knows  with  any  degree  of  certainty; 
how  many  there  were  here  at  the  commencement  of  my 
life-time  is  a  riddle  that  cannot  be  definitely  solved.  The 
Chicago  and  Northwestern  Railway  Company  in  a  "Red 
Book,"  containing  statistics  touching  the  country  it  cov- 
ers and  controls,  says,  "At  some  time  near  the  upper  Mis- 
sissippi valley,  comprising  one-ninth  of  the  United  States, 
there  were  five  hundred  thousand  Indians,  now  not  forty- 
eight  thousand."  This  being  correct,  there  must  have 
been  "at  some  time"  no  less  than  three  million  in  the 
United  States.  "How  are  the  mighty  fallen !"  These 
supposed  three  million  souls,  by  the  more  or  less  direct 
result  of  contact  with  the  white  man,  his  civilization,  his 
broken  treaties,  his  diseases,  his  whiskey  and  gun  powder, 
are  now  reduced  to  less  than  three  hundred  thousand  as 
shown  by  the  census  of  19 10. 

Even  this  number  is  ethnologically  too  large,  for  the 
Government  calls  one  an  Indian  who  has  any  Indian 
blood  in  his  veins.  At  the  White  Earth  Agency  of  the 
Chippewa  Indians  in  the  summer  of  1918,  I  found  their 
official  list  of  names  of  the  tribe  separated  into  full  bloods 
and  mixed  bloods.     There  were  twice  as  many  pages  of 


46  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  latter  as  there  were  of  the  former ;  and  the  same  year, 
at  the  Sisseton  Agency  of  the  Sioux,  they  told  me  there 
were  probably  not  forty  full-blood  Sioux  in  the  four 
thousand  registered  as  belonging  to  the  tribe.  All  this 
being  true,  it  is  probable  that  the  pure-blood  Indians  in 
the  United  States  today  are  the  smaller  part  of  the  num- 
ber stated.  The  Indians,  not  only  as  a  tribe,  but  as  in- 
dividuals, physically  and  ethnologically,  are  not  only  dy- 
ing out,  but  also  fading  out.  Thus  it  becomes  very 
apparent  that  when  the  government  or  anyone  else  talks 
about  the  Indian  increasing  in  number,  the  increase  so 
mentioned  may  be,  and  doubtless  is,  largely  of  those 
who  are  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  white  in  color  as  we  are. 

This  estimate  mentioned  may  be  too  large,  or  too 
small ;  it  may  be  based  upon  facts  exaggerated,  or  mini- 
mized. But  the  great  truth  stands,  unchallenged  and 
undebatable,  that  the  Indian,  throughout  more  than  half 
of  our  country,  as  an  Indian  in  his  free,  self-reliant  and 
self-sustaining  tribal  character,  has,  during  my  life  time, 
perished  forever  from  the  United  States. 

Some  of  the  three  hundred  thousand  of  his  descend- 
ants and  quasi-descendants  today  are  the  richest  people 
per  capita  in  the  world;  many  of  them  individually  start 
out  on  a  new  life  and  make  good  in  their  chosen  profes- 
sion. But  the  greater  part  of  these  broken  tribes,  with 
their  hunting  grounds  gone  and  their  former  life  rendered 
impossible,  find  it  hard  to  take  up  the  white  man's 
burdens,  and  are  living  an  indolent,  dependent,  object- 
less life,  without  purpose,  without  hope,  without  future 
outlook.  These  pitiful  remnants  of  a  once  mighty  people 
have  hardly  preserved  enough  of  their  ancient  personal- 
ity, habits,  customs,  clothing,  and  surroundings,  to  exhibit 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  47 

or  even  suggest  the  brave,  defiant  warrior,  the  tireless 
hunter,  the  generous  host,  the  patriot  who  felt  it  a  joy 
to  sacrifice  himself  for  his  tribe,  and  the  self-reliant,  self- 
sufficient  people  and  such  as  all  early  explorers  and 
unbiased  travelers  unanimously  testify  the  American  In- 
dian once  was. 

I  can  imagine  some  one  laying  down  this  book  and 
saying,  "This  writer  •  is  an  Eastern  sentimentalist,  who 
has  been  carried  away  by  the  feathers,  beads  and  paint  of 
the  Indian,  and  is  stating  things  he  knows  nothing  of." 
Whatever  else  I  may  be,  I  am  not  an  Eastern  sentimen- 
talist: I  have  spent  all  my  active  life  upon  our  Western 
border;  I  am  a  Western  observationist,  and  what  I  have 
personally  known  and  experienced  concerning  the  red 
man  and  the  manner  in  which  he  has  been  treated  by  our 
Government  fully  agrees  with  that  of  Bishop  Whipple  of 
Minnesota.  Of  all  men,  no  one  had  better  opportunity  to 
know  the  inside  facts  of  which  he  wrote  or  possessed  a 
more  honest  heart  and  fearless  courage  to  tell  what  he 
knew.  Hear  what  he  wrote:  "The  Indian  Bureau"  (at 
Washington)  "represents  a  system  that  is  a  blunder  and 
a  crime."  "It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  one  single  treaty" 
(with  the  Indians)  "was  ever  fulfilled  as  it  would  have 
been  if  made  with  a  foreign  power,  which  is  equivalent 
to  saying  they  were  not  fulfilled  at  all.  Pledges  solemnly 
made  have  been  ruthlessly  broken."  "The  North  Ameri- 
can Indian  is  the  noblest  heathen  man  on  earth ;  he  is  brave 
and  fearless,  quick  of  intellect,  a  clear  thinker  and,  until 
betrayed,  true  to  his  plighted  faith ;  he  is  passionately 
fond  of  children,  and  counts  it  a  joy  to  die  for  his 
people."  I  also  have  found  that  what  Captain  Carver, 
who  traveled  among  the  Indians  as  early  as  1766,  says 


48  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

of  them  at  that  time,  was  practically  true  of  the  blanket 
Indians  of  the  West,  when  I  visited  them  in  i860.  .  He 
says  they  were  "temperate  in  their  mode  of  living,  pa- 
tient of  hunger  and  fatigue,  social  and  humane  to  all 
•whom  they  looked  upon  as  friends,  and  ready  to  share 
with  them  the  last  morsel  of  food  they  possessed  and  to 
expose  their  lives  in  their  defense.  They  possessed  an 
attachment  for  their  tribe  unknown  to  inhabitants  of  any 
other  country,  combining  as  if  actuated  by  one  soul 
against  the  common  enemy.  Never  swayed  in  their 
councils  by  selfish  or  party  views,  but  sacrificing  every- 
thing to  the  honor  and  advantage  of  their  tribe,  in  sup- 
port of  which  they  fear  no  danger  and  are  affected  by  no 
suffering." 

I  might  fill  the  remainder  of  my  book  with  quotations 
from  travelers  among  the  Indians  in  primitive  time;  also 
from  what  early  traders,  government  subsistence  agents, 
and  inspectors  who  have  rationed  and  overlooked  them 
say,  and  even  from  what  officers  who  have  fought  them 
testify — all  sustaining  and  maintaining  what  I  have 
written.     Further  proof  seems  needless  repetition. 

I  am  fully  aware  of  the  current  saying  and  opinion, 
credited  to  General  Sheridan,  that  "the  only  good  Indian 
is  a  dead  Indian" ;  I  also  know  the  usual  opinion  that 
he  is  a  lying,  treaty-breaking,  murdering,  scalping  savage. 
He  tells  lies?  Yes,  I  suppose  we  all  do,  and  in  his  deal- 
ings with  us  he  has  received  some  wonderfully  effective 
lessons  in  that  noble  art,  but  the  word  and  honor  of  a 
primitive  Indian  was  as  high  as  that  of  Damon  and 
Pythias.  Then  one  who  told  an  untruth  found  it  nearly 
impossible  to  reinstate  himself  in  his  tribe;  and  it  was  no 
anomaly  in  the  old  Indian  history  for  him  to  report  him- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  49 

self  for  death  voluntarily,  as  the  three  Cayuse  Indian 
chiefs  did  to  General  Lane  in  Oregon  in  1848;  as  the 
three  Sacs  did  to  General  Scott  at  Rock  Island  in  1832 ; 
and  as  the  two  indicted  for  the  murder  of  the  Beresford 
family  did  to  Sheriff  Walker  at  Ottawa,  Illinois,  after 
the  Blackhawk  war.  Even  as  late  as  twenty  years  ago, 
it  was  reported,  and  truly,  as  I  believe  (because  I  have 
had  verification  of  the  story  from  Indian  sources),  that 
a  baseball  player  in  the  Indian  territory  was  condemned 
to  death,  but  was  permitted  on  his  word  of  honor  to 
complete  the  series  of  games  of  his  league.  This  done 
he  reported  to  the  sheriff.  All  these  men,  reported  for 
supposed  death,  simply  on  their  word  of  honor;  and  not 
one  of  them  had  a  Damon  pawned  in  dungeon  to  compel 
such  surrender. 

Treaty-breaking?  No!  I  have  yet  to  hear  of  a  treaty 
he  has  broken  before  the  whites  had  shattered  it  beyond 
repair. 

Murderer?  I  deeply  regret  to  admit  that  he  is,  but  I 
more  deeply  regret  that  the  Sand  Creek  is  not  our  only 
slaughter  of  the  red  men,  and  that  for  every  atrocity  of 
the  red  men  committed  upon  us,  there  are — to  our  shame 
— on  record  in  the  white  man's  history,  as  many  or  more 
of  ours  committed  on  him. 

Brutal  scalper?  Yes,  but  in  old  times,  I  understand, 
only  one  scalp  was  taken  by  the  victorious  war  party  as 
a  symbolic  trophy,  and  that  one  was  treated  with  respect 
and  buried  with  honor.  It  was  not  until  the  colonial 
governors  offered  cash  bounties  for  Indian  scalps 
that  scalp-hunting  vigorously  began,  the  whites  taking  a 
prominent  part  therein. 


50  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  Indian,  at  times  and  as  an  individual,  has  broken 
every  command  of  the  decalogue,  and  has  committed 
every  crime  imaginable  in' his  dealings  with  us,  and  so 
have  we  sinned  in  our  dealings  with  him.  That  ought 
to  be  a  standoff.  Let  us  now,  sportsmanlike,  give  our 
enemy  credit  for  the  good  there  is  in  him.  We  have 
taken  from  him  the  most  beautiful  country  on  earth,  a 
country  that,  by  our  treaties,  we  have  over  and  over  again 
admitted  was  his.  We  have  ruined  his  hunting  ground; 
we  have  slaughtered  his  game;  we  have  destroyed  his 
tribal  relations ;  we  have  imprisoned  him  upon  reserva- 
tions that  were  far  from  the  home  he  loved,  and  away 
from  the  graves  of  his  ancestors,  and  in  surroundings 
that  he,  many  times,  hated;  we  have  given  him  our 
whiskey,  our  diseases,  our  immoralities,  and  now  let  us 
not,  needlessly  rob  him  oif  the  good  name  and  memory 
of  the  virtues  he  once  possessed. 

Why  has  the  Indian  so  vanished  before  the  white 
man  ?  It  was  inevitable ;  it  could  not  be  helped.  The  re- 
sistless law  of  progress  needed  his  hunting  ground  for 
cities,  and  towns,  and  civilized  life.  No  supplication,  no 
pleading,  no  argument,  no  force  would  stop  its  onward 
flow.  When  you  reach  the  great  underlying  fact,  you 
will  find  that  it  was  a  war  of  races ;  and  that  knowingly 
or  unknowingly,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  it  also  became 
a  war  of  extinction,  Our  forefathers  seemed  to  so 
understand  it,  for  where  are  the  tribes  of  Powhatan  in 
Virginia  and  of  King  Philip  in  Massachusetts?  If  it 
were  not  so,  why  should  the  old  colonial  governors  offer 
bounties  for  scalps?  Why  should  the  peaceable,  Chris- 
tian, Moravian  Indians  have  been  butchered  while  at 
prayer,  with  no  one  daring  to  say  a  word  of  protest  ex- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  51 

cept  the  Quakers?  And  why  should  the  old  time 
Episcopalian  and  Presbyterian  preachers  both  believe 
and  preach,  like  the  Israelites  of  old,  that  it  was  their 
bounden  duty  to  kill,  root  and  branch,  the  heathen  and 
Canaanite,  as  they  called  the  Indian? 

Yes,  it  was  a  war  of  races,  the  strong  against  the 
weak,  and  in  such  war,  the  weak  must  go  to  the  wall. 
If  in  the  desperation  of  defeat  and  disaster  the  defeated 
one,  like  Shylock,  shall  say  to  the  white  man,  "The  vil- 
lainy you  teach  me,  I  will  execute,  and  it  shall  go  hard 
but  I  will  better  the  instruction,"  who  shall  blame  him? 
Then  when  death  and  the  extinction  of  his  tribe  faced 
the  Indian,  he  did  as  you  would,  as  I  should,  and  as  we 
all  ought  to  have  done,  if  matters  were  reversed,  and  the 
Indians  were  the  aggressors  and  the  white  men  the  de- 
fenders :  they  went  upon  the  warpath  and  there  fought 
bravely — how  bravely,  space  in  this  book  will  not  permit 
me  to  tell. 

I  blame  not  my  country,  nor  my  ancestors.  I  try  to 
be  a  one  hundred  per  cent  American.  My  forefathers 
fought  in  the  Colonial  wars  and  in  the  Revolution,  as 
I  did  in  the  Civil  War,  and  as  I  am  now  voluntarily 
under  call  to  do  what  I  can  in  the  World  War.  My 
people  have  treated  the  Indians  badly,  but  the  greater 
part  of  that  treatment  was  a  necessity.  You  or  I  could 
probably  have  done  no  better — might  have  done  worse. 
The  Indian  has  done  what  his  Great  Mystery  bade  him ; 
he  has,  to  his  last  and  his  best,  fought  for  his  land,  his 
fathers'  graves,  his  wife  and  his  children,  and  we,  all 
of  us,  would  despise  him  had  he  not  done  so.  There 
let  the  issue  rest  until  the  great  Hereafter  shall  try  the 
cause,    and   just   judgment   render. 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
ILLINOIS  LIBRARY 


52  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  IV 
THE  "GREAT  AMERICAN  DESERT" 

When  the  Indians  had  dispersed,  after  their  council,  I 
resumed  my  way  down  the  Arkansas  River.  Oh,  the 
glory  of  that  ride!  Think  of  it :  I  had  youth,  my  ponies 
at  my  command  to  carry  me  where  I  would  and  when 
I  would,  thousands  of  miles  of  uninhabited  land  for  my 
kingdom,  over  whose  plains  I  could  gallop  at  will  or  by 
whose  streams  I  could  linger  at  pleasure;  with  herds  of 
buffalo  in  each  valley,  with  bands  of  antelope  on  each 
hill,  and  the  "yap-yap"  of  the  countless  prairie  dogs  cal- 
ling, "Hail  brother."  Even  the  howl  of  the  large  gray 
wolf  at  night  was  a  greeting,  and  the  "yip~yip  y-e-ah"  of 
the  coyote  was  a  welcome.  What  more  could  a  boy  ask? 
My  old  blood  of  more  than  four  score  years  leaps  again 
at  memory  of  it. 

I  was  in  love  with  life  on  the  plains.  I  should  have 
been  more  than  welcome  in  either  of  the  Indian  nations 
at  Bent's  Fort,  for  I  possessed  some  of  the  white  man's 
knowledge  which  they  greatly  wanted ;  I  had  no  ties  that 
called  me  back  to  the  States,  and  I  have  since  wondered 
how  I  escaped  remaining  in  that  wild  country. 

I  think  likely  I  would  have  remained,  but  for  one 
man.  He  was  one  of  the  scouts  who  took  Fremont 
through  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  was  a  genuine  speci- 
men of  that  class  of  men  of  which  I  told  you  once  I  was 
an  imitation — a  Western  scout  and  trapper.  He  was  then 
an  old,  feeble,  decrepit  man.  His  left  arm  had  been 
broken  by  a  bullet.  It  had  healed  without  proper  setting 
and  was  stiff  and  distorted,  but  he  could  raise  it  enough 
to  steady  his  rifle ;  he  was  still  a  dead  shot.    I  met  him  in 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  53 

the  hostile  Comanche  country  about  three  days  before  I 
reached  Bent's  Fort.  He  was,  like  myself,  traveling  with 
two  ponies,  and  we  rode  and  camped  together  until  we 
reached  the  point  mentioned. 

The  old  man  seemed  to  take  a  fatherly  interest  in 
me,  and,  as  soon  as  he  found  that  I  had  education  and 
experience  enough  to  take  care  of  myself  in  civilized  life, 
insisted  that  I  return  immediately  to  the  States.  He 
urged  this,  with  many  reasons,  until  I  promised  to  com- 
ply. To  get  this  promise  from  me,  he  broke  through 
the  stoic  reserve  of  the  plainsman  and  confidentially 
told  me  his  story.  He  belonged  to  one  of  the  best  known 
and  respected  families  of  St.  Louis.  He  went  on  the 
plains  about  my  age  and  stayed  too  long;  so  long,  that 
when  he  did  return,  it  was  too  late :  he  could  not  adapt 
himself  to  civilized  life,  and,  what  was  worse,  did  not 
want  to. 

He  again  went  West  to  live  and  die  in  the  land  he 
loved.  He  had  a  grown  family  in  a  tribe  of  Indians, 
but  any  one  of  his  grown  boys,  he  said,  would  shoot 
him  on  sight.  He  could  not  go  to  his  Indian  home,  he 
would  not  go  to  his  white  one.  He  was  too  proud  to 
impose  upon  a  stranger,  and  told  me  he  would  range 
the  plains  and  mountains,  trapping  as  he  could,  scouting 
when  he  might,  until  he  died  in  some  lone  camp  and  the 
wolves  picked  his  bones — unless  someone  found  them 
sooner  and  buried  them. 

He  would  not  tell  me  why  his  sons  were  so  hostile, 
but  years  after,  in  reading  an  account  of  the  Fremont 
expedition,  I  came  across  a  bit  of  his  life  that  solved  the 
riddle.  His  act  was  that  of  a  man  crazed  with  whiskey, 
and  I  could  not  blame  his  tribe  for  the  deadly  hatred  in 


54  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

which  they  held  him.  Yet  sinner  that  he  was,  I  still 
thank  him  for  his  unselfish  act  in  baring  his  lone  life  for 
my  benefit.  Although  I  know  well  that  his  condition 
was  the  result  of  his  own  folly,  still  the  thought  of  my 
promise  to  that  old,  broken  man,  waiting  to  die  alone, 
always  remained  between  me  and  my  thought  of  follow- 
ing his  footsteps. 

But  there  was  one  draw-back  to  my  complete  pleasure 
in  this  glorious  ride  across  the  primitive  plains.  That 
was  the  red  man.  I  was  now  among  friendly  and  neutral 
tribes ;  there  was  no  danger  to  my  life ;  no  Indian  could 
gain  an  eagle's  feather  by  taking  my  scalp  or  counting  a 
coup  on  my  body.  Should  he  kill  me  and  claim  such 
reward  of  his  council,  they  would  not  grant  it  to  him,  but 
would  probably  punish  him  for  needlessly  embroiling  his 
tribe  in  war.  Therefore,  my  person  was  safe,  but  one 
might  just  as  well  be  killed  and  scalped  as  left  on  the 
plains  without  ponies  and  provisions. 

An  Indian  was  not  supposed  to  marry  until  he  had 
changed  his  child  name  to  one  gained  by  himself  from 
some  noted  deed  he  had  done.  The  principal  way  to 
such  honor  was  the  hunting  trail  and  the  war  path.  To 
kill  me  would  bring  no  honor,  but  to  raid  my  camp,  in 
their  view,  was  a  different  matter,  and  if  worthily  and 
skillfully  done,  might  bring  distinction  to  some  young 
man,  giving  him  a  name  among  his  tribe,  and  permitting 
him  to  marry  the  maid  he,  perhaps,  had  long  loved.  In 
every  tribe  through  which  I  might  pass  were  many  young 
men  eager  for  such  advancement,  and  even  though  I  was 
a  friend  of  the  Indian,  I  did  not  care  to  graduate  him 
in  the  only  university  his  tribe  possessed  by  the  loss  of 
my  ponies.     Given  my  way  about  it,  I  should  prefer  he 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  55 

would  remain  unknown  and  unmarried  forever  rather 
than  to  assist  him  in  that  way.  In  this  case,  as  in  many 
before,  for  aid  and  support  I  relied  upon  Beauty,  brave, 
faithful  Beauty — my  first  love. 

That  reminds  me,  you  have  not  been  introduced  to  my 
two  traveling  companions.  This  must  be  done.  Permit 
me  to  introduce  Bob  and  Beauty.  Bob  was  an  ordinary 
Indian  pony;  he  did  not  know  much — scarcely  as  much 
as  I  did  when  it  came  to  an  ultimate  show  down ;  but  he 
had  two  virtues  that  made  him  invaluable  to  me  as  a 
pack  pony:  he  was  afraid  to  be  alone,  and  he,  like  myself, 
loved  Beauty.  Turned  loose  with  his  pack  in  the  morn- 
ing, where  Beauty  and  I  should  go,  he  would  follow. 
No  forest  was  so  dark  and  tangled,  no  path  on  the  preci- 
pice so  steep  or  dangerous,  no  trail  so  long,  no  desert  so 
drear,  but  he  was  near  us,  and  the  greater  the  danger  the 
closer  he  came. 

But  Beauty — how  shall  I  describe  her?  She  had  the 
far-reaching  eye  of  the  eagle,  the  alertness  and  spright- 
liness  of  the  deer,  the  speed  of  the  antelope,  the  affection 
and  fidelity  of  the  dog,  and  the  beauty  of  a  glorious 
woman.  She  must  have  had  much  gentle  blood  in  her 
veins.  I  more  than  half  suspect  she  had  been  stolen ;  the 
low  price  asked  for  her,  the  fact  that  such  low  price  was 
further  cheapened  when  it  was  made  known  that  I  was 
leaving  immediately  for  the  States,  and  her  apparent 
aversion  to  the  man  who  claimed  to  be  her  owner,  were 
all  suspicious  facts.  But  it  was  a  case  of  "love  at  first 
sight"  with  me,  and  the  fear  of  being  accessory  after  the 
fact  in  a  case  of  grand  larcency  had  no  terrors  for  me  if 
I  could  only  call  her  mine. 

Unlike  Bob,  Beauty  had  brains  and  knew  how  to  use 


56  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

them.  Without  joking,  of  the  three  of  us,  she  was  in 
many  ways  the  best  plains-man ;  of  some  things  she  knew 
more  than  Bob  and  I  both,  and  experience  had  taught  us 
to  let  her  have  her  way  therein.  But  one  day  our  wills 
crossed,  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  conflict,  my  defeat, 
her  victory,  and  the  final  result  eminently  satisfactory  to 
us  both.  Before  this  when  in  need  of  provisions,  I  had 
killed  buffalo  by  still-hunting,  but  had  never  attempted 
to  run  them  on  horseback ;  that  was  a  new  thing  to  me, 
but  before  the  day  was  out,  I  found  it  was  an  old  game 
for  Beauty.  I  knew  something  of  the  danger  and  to  pro- 
vide against  it  had  cinched  Beauty's  saddle  tight  and 
drawn  up  the  curb  strap  of  her  bridle  so  that  I  had  full 
command  of  her  motions.  To  my  surprise,  when  we 
reached  the  herd  of  buffalo,  she  would  not  go  near  them. 
I  coaxed,  there  was  no  compliance ;  I  commanded,  there 
was  no  obedience ;  I  chastised  to  her,  and  there  was  such 
spirited  resistance  that  I  should  have  been  stretched 
upon  the  ground  had  I  not  been  a  fairly  decent  horseman. 
I  dismounted  to  investigate — there  was  no  mistaking  her 
eye,  it  was  not  wicked  or  obstinate;  it  was  pleading  and 
anxious.  I  remembered  the  time  when  crossing  a  river 
she  absolutely  refused  to  go  where  I  wanted  her,  but 
when  given  her  head  she  safely  picked  her  way  over. 
She  knew  the  look  of  quicksand ;  I  had  not  noticed  it. 
Something  of  that  kind  was  the  matter  now,  and  the 
poor  beastie  could  not  talk  and  tell  me  what  it  was. 

Finally  I  had  sense  enough  to  guess  the  trouble.  She 
was  afraid  to  go  in  among  the  dangerous  horns  of  a 
furious  buffalo  herd  unless  she  was  given  her  head,  free 
to  dodge  wherever  and  whenever  need  appeared.  With 
much  misgiving  I  risked  my  guess.     I  stripped  her  clean, 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  57 

save  for  lariat  looped  around  her  lower  jaw,  Indian 
fashion.  I  left  saddle  and  blanket  and  bridle  on  the 
ground,  and  mounted  her.  I  had  no  more  than  touched 
her  bare  neck  when  she  was  off  like  a  falcon  after  its 
quarry;  she  taught  me  that  day  how  to  run  buffalo. 

The  trick  for  the  horse  to  perform  in  this  case  is  to 
place  its  rider  along  side  of  the  buffalo,  just  behind  his 
left  shoulder,  and  never  to  pass  that  point;  should  it  be 
done,  a  mad  bull  would  be  likely  to  wheel  and  thrust  his 
horns  into  the  flanks  of  his  passing  antagonist,  and  the 
horse  and  not  the  buffalo  would  be  killed.  I  saw  an  inex- 
perienced traveler  lose  the  best  horse  in  his  team,  trying 
to  run  buffalo  and  not  observing  this  precaution. 

The  trained  pony,  the  moment  the  shot  is  fired,  halts 
in  his  course  or  whirls  to  the  left  before  the  bull  has  time 
to  make  his  counter  attack ;  the  alert  horse  can  tell  when 
and  how  this  should  be  done  better  than  his  rider.  Have 
you  ever  seen  a  little  king  bird  drive  a  great  hawk  away 
from  too  close  proximity  to  his  nest?  There  is  a  dash 
and  a  stroke  in  the  rear,  a  dash  and  a  stroke  at  the  side, 
but  never  in  front  where  the  beak  and  the  talons  of  the 
great  bird  work.  Such  is  the  movement  of  the  buffalo 
pony  after  his  game.  Such  attack  demands  quick  move- 
ment for  the  horse  and  sure  seat  for  the  rider,  or  they 
will  terminate  the  hunt  by  measuring  their  lengths  upon 
the  ground,  perhaps  beneath  the  hoofs  of  a  frightened 
herd. 

This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  Beauty  would  risk 
herself,  and  me,  with  only  a  lariat  in  her  mouth,  Indian 
fashion,  but  would  not  go  while  under  my  control  with 
a  bridle.  With  the  first  I  could  communicate  only  my 
wishes  to  her,  but  could  not  prevent  her  from  doubling 


58  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

and  dodging  whenever  she  wished.  Buffalo  Bill  had  a 
favorite  horse  from  which  he  always  took  the  bridle,  then 
gave  freedom  when  running  the  game  that  gave  him  his 
name. 

Such  a  horse  was  Beauty,  and  upon  such  a  four- 
footed  chum  I  must  rely  to  protect  ourselves  from 
marauding  Indians  during  night  time.  All  traveling 
trains  were  compelled  to  guard  their  camps  by  sleepless 
sentinels.  I  must  do  the  same  or  attach  myself  to  some 
train  for  protection,  or  camp  and  run  as  I  did  in  the 
hostile  country.  I  had  exhausted  all  the  fun  there  was 
in  the  latter  method ;  I  did  not  care  to  adopt  the  former, 
because  my  ponies  secured  better  feed  and  I  maintained 
my  glorious  independence  while  alone ;  therefore,  I  con- 
cluded to  mobilize  my  own  forces. 

As  Bob  was  a  "dumb-head"  he  was  of  no  use  in  this 
emergency,  and  so  it  left  only  Beauty  and  me  to  guard 
camp.  I  believed  we  could  do  it.  She  slept  little  nights 
(that  was  her  feeding  time),  and  she  wakened  easily. 
She  hated  an  Indian,  and  naturally  a  wolf,  and  would 
stamp  and  snort  her  indignation  at  the  near  approach  of 
either.  My  tactics  at  night  were  as  follows :  I  would 
lay  my  buffalo  robe,  fur  up,  on  some  grassy  spot — this 
for  the  fourfold  purpose  of  warmth,  of  protection  from 
possible  dampness,  to  guard  against  the  ever-present 
needles  of  the  cacti,  and  lastly,  as  a  shield  against  the 
rattlesnake  that  never  crawls  over  animal  hair.  My  saddle 
was  my  pillow,  and  I  placed  it  at  the  head  of  the  robe, 
and  there  drove  my  picket  pin;  to  this  was  attached  a 
fifty  foot  lariat,  and  at  the  other  end  of  the  same,  by  a 
protected   loop   around   her  neck,    Beauty   was   secured. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  59 

There,  with  only  my  blankets  and  the  sky  above  for  cov- 
ering, I  slept,  while  Beauty  grazed  around  and  over  me. 

I  was  sure  that  neither  Indian  nor  wolf  could  ap- 
proach our  camp  without  the  stamping  and  snorting  of 
Beauty  awakening  me ;  therefore  we  were  safe,  unless 
some  one  should  crawl  into  camp  when  she  and  I  both 
were  asleep  at  the  same  time — a  very  rare  moment.  This 
was  a  danger  so  remote  that  to  consider  all  such  hazards 
would  make  life  unbearable.  . 

My  order  of  campaign  worked  well  for  several  weeks, 
and  then  one  night  I  was  suddenly  awakened.  Some- 
thing had  happened ;  I  could  not  hear  Beauty.  I  reached 
for  the  lariat  and  pulled  in  about  twenty  feet  of  it.  I 
found  it  broken ;  my  pony  was  gone.  The  end  of  the 
lariat  was  not  ragged  or  lacerated ;  therefore  neither 
wolf  nor  accident  had  parted  it.  It  was  cut  smooth  with  a 
knife — the  "almost  impossible"  had  happened ;  Beauty 
and  I  had  both  been  asleep,  and  an  Indian  had  raided  us. 

My  first  thought  upon  springing  to  my  feet  was  one  of 
panic.  I  was  here  in  the  center  of  the  then-called  "Great 
American  Desert,"  without  ponies,  and  I  might  as  well  be 
scalped  and  buried.  My  second  thought  was  to  use  the 
Indian  silence  method.  I  sat  down  to  think  the  matter 
out.  An  Indian  had  certainly  cut  my  pony  loose,  but 
had  he  caught  her?  I  knew  her  well  enough  to  under- 
stand that  with  only  a  stopped  lariat  loose  around  her 
neck,  no  Indian  could  handle  her  or  mount  her  without  a 
fight,  and  even  if  he  had  succeeded  in  mounting  her,  he 
would  have  to  be  an  A  No.  I  crack  rider,  or  she  would 
string  his  length  across  the  prairie  sod.  There  had  been 
no  such  struggle  or  I  should  have  wakened  in  time  to 
take  part  in  it.    The  chances  were  that  the  cutting  of  the 


60  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

lariat  had  awakened  the  mare  and  that  her  first  spring 
had  jerked  the  rope  from  the  Indian's  hand.  This  start 
of  Beauty  was  what  awakened  me.  If  this  was  the  case, 
she  would  not  run  farther  than  her  first  scare  took  her, 
and  then  would  commence  working  back  to  camp.  But 
I  must  find  her  before  daylight,  for  if  the  raider  had 
another  horse  and  a  lasso  he  might  still  catch  her. 

I  had  no  fear  of  the  Indian  should  I  run  across  him. 
He  would  probably  meet  with  a  "How,"  I  should  likely 
get  my  ponies  back  if  he  still  had  them,  and  we  should 
most  likely  part  friends.  I  commenced  circling  farther 
and  farther  around  the  camp,  occasionally  placing  my  ear 
to  the  ground.  Hunters  and  plainsmen  know  that  the 
ground  is  a  pretty  good  telephone ;  one  can  hear  an  animal 
grazing  a  long  distance  away.  After  several  hours  of 
such  circling  and  listening,  my  ear  often  close  to  the 
ground,  I  heard,  away  off,  the  crop,  crop,  crop  of  some 
animal  feeding,  I  carefully  worked  up  nearer,  then  I 
softly  whistled  and  called,  "Beauty!"  A  whinny  ans- 
wered me.  The  next  moment  I  was  hugging  her  neck 
with  Bob  standing  by  to  witness  the  mutually  joyful 
reunion. 

Now  that  my  scheme  of  camp  protection  had  been 
shattered,  what  should  I  do?  I  remembered  a  story 
extant  in  the  west,  corroborated  by  what  I  had  learned  at 
Bent's  Fort,  which  is,  as  lawyers  say,  so  on  "all  fours" 
with  this  situation  that  I  must  here  repeat  it  although  the 
yarn  is  hoary  with  age.  As  the  story  goes,  a  commis- 
sioner was  sent  by  the  government  to  some  western  tribe 
of  Indians.  He  had  a  very  fine  beaver  overcoat,  and  the 
day  being  warm,  he  asked  a  chief  where  he  could  leave 
it  so  that  it  would  be  safe.  This  was  a  strange  question  to 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  61 

ask  in  an  Indian  village,  although  the  commissioner  did 
not  know  it.  The  chief  haughtily  replied,  "Leave  it  any- 
where; other  than  yourself  there  is  not  a  white  man  with- 
in five  hundred  miles."  Now,  I  know  not,  and  I  care 
not,  whether  this  story  was  true  or  fictitious;  but  I  do 
know  and  I  do  care  that  the  great  fact,  so  far  as  the 
safety  of  the  overcoat  was  concerned,  would  have  been 
true  in  old  time  in  any  camp  of  our  western  tribes,  even 
though  the  guest  had  been  an  obscure  stranger,  and  not  a 
representative  of  the  government. 

This  being  a  fact,  why  not  throw  myself  upon  the 
red  man's  hospitality?  I  did  this  and  found  no  further 
trouble.  You  may  care  to  know  how  I  managed  it.  When 
I  was  within  reasonable  distance  of  an  Indian  town  that 
was  fairly  accessible,  I  made  the  ride,  went  openly  into 
the  camp,  unsaddled  my  ponies,  and  left  my  property 
wherever  I  cared  to.  While  there  were  things  among  my 
kit  which  an  Indian  of  that  time  cared  more  for  than 
bags  of  gold,  I  felt  that,  although  among  so-called  "thiev- 
ing, treacherous,  murdering,  scalping  savages,"  I  and  my 
property  were  as  safe  as  though  I  were  in  some  city  hotel 
and  my  property  locked  in  a  safety  deposit  vault. 

I  can  imagine  circumstances  where,  by  thus  riding 
into  an  Indian  camp,  one  might  lose  his  life  and  scalp  in 
ten  minutes.  But  entry  having  been  made;  and  the  rela- 
tion of  host  and  guest  being  established,  the  guest  and  his 
property  were  safe,  even  to  the  extent  of  the  warriors  of 
the  tribe  having  to  fight  for  his  protection.  I  never  lost  a 
thing.  I  never  missed  a  thing  but  once.  I  had  a  small, 
sharp,  camping  ax,  something  that  an  Indian  of  that 
time  would  prize  more  than  a  white  man  would  a  farm. 
One  morning  when  I  saddled  up,  it  was  gone.    I  went'  to 


62  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  chief  and  made  him  understand  what  was  missing. 
Just  imagine  what  would  happen  in  a  white  man's  town 
should  a  stranger  passing  through  make  such  a  complaint 
to  the  mayor.  His  Honor  would  refer  him  to  the  chief 
of  police,  and  he  to  some  lieutenant  or  sergeant  who 
would  make  some  due  record  of  the  same,  and  you  would 
be  lucky  if  he  did  not  require  you,  as  a  transient  traveler, 
to  put  up  bail  to  appear  at  the  prosecution  if  the  thief 
should  be  caught.  There  was  no  such  circumlocution  in 
my  case  in  the  Indian  town.  In  less  than  ten  minutes 
the  commotion  was  such  that  you  would  have  thought  a 
cyclone  had  struck  the  camp,  and  in  less  than  half  an 
hour  my  ax  was  returned.  A  little  eight-year-old  papoose 
had  carried  it  off. 

One  thing  on  this  trip  saddened  me :  it  was  the  ruth- 
less destruction  that  my  people  were  committing  in  this 
land.  I  will  let  Santanta,  a  Kiowa  chief,  pleading  before 
a  United  States  commission,  just  before  the  Sand  Creek 
massacre,  tell  the  tale :  "I  have  no  desire  to  kill  the  white 
settlers  or  immigrants  crossing  the  plains,  but  those  who 
come  and  live  upon  the  land  of  my  tribe  ruthlessly 
slaughter  the  buffalo,  allowing  the  carcasses  to  rot  upon 
the  prairie,  killing  merely  for  the  amusement  it  affords 
them,  while  the  Indian  only  kills  when  necessity  de- 
mands. White  hunters  set  fire,  destroying  the  grass  and 
causing  the  tribe's  horses  to  die  of  starvation  as  well  as 
the  buffalo.  They  cut  and  otherwise  destroy  timber  on 
the  margins  of  the  streams,  making  large  fires  of  it,  while 
the  Indian  is  satisfied  to  cook  his  food  with  a  few  dry 
and  dead  limbs.  Only  the  other  day,  I  picked  up  on  the 
trail  a  little  switch,  and  it  made  my  heart  sick  to  think 
that  the  green  branch  torn  out  of  the  ground,  and  thought- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  63 

lessly  destroyed  by  some  white  man  would  in  time  have 
grown  into  a  stately  tree  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  my 
children  and  children's  children." 

Santanta  was  right :  the  destruction  was  appalling.  I 
feel  thankful  that  before  I  went  upon  the  plains  I  had 
already  learned  that  it  is  wicked  to  take  any  life  without 
need  or  cause,  and  that,  having  spent  the  winter  prece- 
ding my  trip  at  work  in  the  timber,  I  had  so  tired  of  an 
ax  handle  that  I  would  not  touch  one  unless  absolutely 
compelled  to.  Some  conception  of  the  slaughter  of  the 
buffalo  may  be  had  from  the  number  of  skeletons  left 
upon  the  plains.  Inman,  in  his  "Santa  Fe  Trail,"  tells 
us  that  according  to  carefully  compiled  statistics  there 
was  paid  for  the  bones  of  these  skeletons  during  the 
years  1868-1881,  in  Kansas  alone,  the  sum  of  two  million 
five  hundred  thousand  dollars.  At  the  prices  and  weights 
which  he  gives  it  must  have  taken  millions  of  skeletons 
to  produce  the  tonnage.  Nine-tenths  of  these  animals  were 
killed  for  fun,  or  for  their  tongues,  or  for  their  robes,  or 
for  sheer  deviltry. 

From  Bent's  Fort  to  the  outskirts  of  white  settlements 
in  the  then  territory  of  Kansas,  over  five  hundred  miles, 
I  found  not  a  single  dwelling  or  sign  of  civilized  improve- 
ments between  the  two  places  save  only  the  many  and 
deeply  marked  tracks  of  the  Santa  Fe  Trail.  How  many 
more  miles  the  windings  of  the  trail  compelled  me  to  go, 
I  know  not,  or  how  much  I  lengthened  the  distance  by 
side  trips  for  game,  pleasure,  or  sight-seeing,  I  cared  not 
then  nor  care  I  now.  Between  the  mesa  lands  of  New 
Mexico  and  the  waters  of  the  Missouri  River  the  whole 
summer  passed  away,  never  to  be  forgotten,  but  always 


64  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

to  be  remembered  in  the  years  of  strenuous  work  that 
followed,  as  a  prolonged,  life-giving,  glorious  holiday. 

I  have  since,  again  and  again,  made  trips  over  the 
same  country,  not  on  horse-back  and  alone,  but  on  luxur- 
ious trains  in  a  Pullman  car.  The  journey  that  then  took 
me  all  summer  to  make  is  now  rushed  through  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  In  place  of  sleeping  beneath  the  stars  in 
God's  free  outdoors,  I  am  crammed  into  a  berth  four  by 
four  by  seven  feet,  so  small  and  so  close  as  to  make  me 
dream  of  the  chamber  I  soon  expect  to  have  assigned  for 
my  final  rest. 

Then,  for  nearly  a  thousand  miles  of  the  distance, 
there  was  a  wilderness  inhabited  only  by  wild  beasts  and 
wandering  tribes ;  the  only  signs  of  civilization  being  a 
fort  or  trading  station  once  in  several  hundred  miles  or 
so,  and  occasionally,  on  the  trail,  a  long  train  outward  or 
inward  bound ;  sometimes  a  lone  hunter  or  trapper  ap- 
peared, and  at  times  a  straggling  line  of  gold-seekers — 
simply  these  and  nothing  more.  Now  we  pass  in  endless 
and  constant  succession,  cities,  towns,  villages,  farms, 
and  factories.  The  wilderness  that  was,  has  given  way 
to  civilization  and  busy  life,  and  the  West  as  I  knew  it  in 
my  young  manhood  has  gone  forever. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN 


65 


"Kiva"    of    Pueblo    Indians 

Place  for  Heathen   Worship.     Only  the  Entrance  is  shown, 

The  Temple  is  below  the  ground  and  reached  by  ladder 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  PUEBLO  AND  MAYA  INDIANS 

In  our  far  Southwest  resides  an  Indian  who  is  an 
anomaly  of  the  race.  He  lives  in  a  pueblo,  tills  the 
ground,  and  is  not  dying  out  like  his  wandering,  hunting 
brothers  of  the  North  and  East.  His  deviation  from  the 
tribes  that  we  have  been  describing  is  so  great  in  history, 
in  habits,  in  condition,  and  I  found  his  surroundings  so 
interesting  when  I  visited  his  home,  that  I  care  not  to 
drop  this  subject  without  mentioning  something  of  him 
and  his  life. 

Many  writers  claim  that  the  Pueblo  Indian  is  living 
the  same  life  that  his  ancestors  did,  perhaps  two  thousand 
years  ago,   and  that   during  all   these   years  he  has   not 


66  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

changed.  One  such  enthusiastic  writer  said  that  these 
people  were  so  self-sufficient  and  self-secluded  that, 
"were  the  whole  earth  swept  bare  of  everything  except  a 
few  leagues  around  their  tribal  home,  their  life  would 
show  little  disturbance ;  probably  some  time  would  elapse 
before  they  even  heard  of  the  event."  This  statement  is 
wrong:  I  know  something  of  this  people;  I  have  visited 
their  pueblos ;  I  have  entered  their  great  community 
buildings,  enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  their  owners,  and 
stood  on  the  walls  that  rear  themselves  story  over  story 
and  built  without  outer  openings  of  any  kind.  The  win- 
dows and  doors  of  these  curious  structures  were  formerly 
in  the  roof,  and  access  thereto  was  had  by  rickety  pole 
ladders  which,  in  old  war  times,  were  let  down  in  the 
morning  and  withdrawn  to  the  roof  at  night.  I  have 
often  thought  what  a  lively  contest  it  would  be  should  the 
persistent  enemy  the  Pueblo  feared,  attempt  to  mount 
those  ladders  in  face  of  a  stubborn  defense ;  it  would  be  a 
conflict  worth  seeing — from  the  distance.  In  these  great 
houses,  in  old  times,  the  whole  community  once  lived, 
traveling  daily  from  them  perhaps  a  score  of  miles  to 
cultivate  its  crops. 

The  Pueblo  Indian  is  the  great  conservative  of  his 
race,  yet  what  these  enthusiastic  writers  say  of  him  as 
not  changing  is  true  only  in  a  limited  degree.  Notwith- 
standing asertions  to  the  contrary,  I  found  him  progres- 
sing. During  my  lifetime,  he  has  knocked  openings  for 
doors  and  windows  in  the  walls  of  his  ancient  houses,  so 
that  he  uses  his  ladders  for  other  purposes  than  means  of 
entrance.  He  is  now  building  one-story  homes,  more  com- 
fortable and  convenient  than  the  old  ones,  and  placing 
them  in  scattered  locations  near  his  farm  work.     He  is 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  67 

now  using  our  new  farm  machinery  and  means  of  trans- 
portation including'  even  the  automobile.  He  and  his 
wife  patronize  the  trader's  store,  and  the  question  most 
frequently  asked  of  me  in  the  Pueblo  was,  "How  is  the 
war  in  Europe  getting  along?"  That  the  Pueblo  Indian 
has  been  surprisingly  conservative,  and  has  changed  as 
little  as  possible,  is  a  fact,  but  there  are  only  nine  thou- 
sand of  him,  and  what  he  has  done  or  has  not  done 
touches  not  nor  affects  the  great  mass  of  the  Indians  of 
the  United  States  of  whom  I  have  been  talking. 

The  Pueblo  Indian  character  is,  however,  so  unique, 
and  his  history,  what  we  know  of  it,  so  interesting,  that 
it  well  deserves  mention.  His  contact  with  the  white  man 
began  in  1540,  when  Antianco  de  Mendoza  was  governing 
Mexico  City  and  territory.  Among  his  military  forces 
were  some  of  the  fierce  Spaniards  of  Cortez'  old  com- 
mand, with  others,  who,  having  no  more  enemies  there 
to  fight,  were  quarreling  among  themselves.  To  rid  him- 
self of  these  turbulent  men  he  ordered  Francisco  Vasquez 
de  Coronado  to  take  the  whole  organization  on  an  expedi- 
tion to  the  northeast,  and  never  to  bring  them  back.  These 
men,  with  some  priests,  subdued  the  Pueblos  and  natives 
of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico  by  artifice,  diplomacy,  and 
battle,  and  penetrated  in  search  of  Quivira  (a  reported 
city  of  much  gold)  to  near  where  Kansas  City  now  is. 
There  the  hoax  exploded,  so  far  as  the  expedition  was 
concerned,  and  the  deceitful  guide  was  killed. 

How  the  Pueblos  liked  the  rule  of  these  men  is  proved 
by  the  revolution  of  1680,  when  they  did  what  I  suspect 
they  would  like  to  do  today.  Unexpectedly  and  simul- 
taneously they  arose,  wiped  the  land  clean  of  the  white 
men,  butchered  the  priests  at  their  altars,  and  made  it  a 


68 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


crime  for  an  Indian  to  confess  or  profess  the  Christian 
religion.  Had  they  remained  true  to  one  another,  the 
Spaniard  would  never  have  reconquered  them,  but  they 
quarreled  among  themselves,  and  fourteen  years  later 
Deigo  de  Varges,  the  Reconquestador,  again  reduced 
them  to  submission.  Ever  since  this  time  they  have  been 
under  Spanish  or  American  rule. 

As  I  understand  it,  and  as  I  found  it  to  be,  the  Pueblo 
Indians  were  not  so  self-sustaining,  self-sufficient,  ex- 
clusive, or  separate  a  people  as  some  writers  would  make 
them.  The  fact  seems  to  be,  from  all  we  know  of  this 
Indian,  that  he  now  is,  and  always  has  been  a  born  trader, 
and  a  trader,  must  of  necessity  be  more  or  less  of  a 
mixer.  In  old  times  he  made  traffic  even  with  his  ancient 
enemies,   the  Apaches   and    Navajos,    and   as   most   any 


Indian  Exhibit  at  Station  in  Albuqueque 
Trading  Squaws  Meet  Every  Train 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  69 

tourist  through  their  land  today  can  testify,  they  have 
not  yet  forgotten  their  cunning  either  as  salesmen  or 
manufacturers.  At  every  station  in  their  land  will  be 
found  Indian  traders  with  their  wares  soliciting  patron- 
age, and  in  neighboring  towns  their  manufactures  are  the 
most  prominent  on  sale. 

So  keen  were  the  old  Pueblos  for  trade  that  many 
were  destroyed  when,  in  their  cupility  for  traffic,  they 
opened  their  doors  to  the  savages  who  came  pretending 
a  desire  for  trade,  but  after  entering  remained  to 
slaughter. 

Of  course,  such  a  born  trader  as  this  would  know 
immediately  what  to  do  when  the  white  merchant  set  up 
his  store  in  the  vicinity  of  his  community,  and  I  always 
found  near  every  Pueblo  I  visited  ?  large  flourishing  store, 
so  well-filled  that  even  a  white  family  would  not  suffer 
if  limited  to  its  contents.  The  path  between  the  Indian 
community  houses  and  the  trader's  store  is  kept  well 
trodden  by  men,  women,  and  children,  and,  as  with  us, 
the  women  are  the  most  persistent  patrons.  While  they 
cling  most  tenaciously  to  their  tribal  dress,  I  fear  the  ma- 
terials of  which  it  is  made  come  largely  from  the  trader's 
shelves.  Do  not  think  for  a  moment  that  the  trading 
squaw  can  be  deceived  in  the  difference  between  silk  and 
near-silk,  or  between  cotton  and  wool  fabrics.  She  loves 
the  better  goods  quite  as  well  as  her  white  sister,  and 
will  be  quite  as  patient,  persistent,  and  resourceful  in 
procuring  them. 

Since  the  traders  came  to  the  Pueblo  Indian's  door, 
he,  like  his  white  brother,  has  commenced  specializing  his 
industries.      The   men    specialize   in    silver   trinkets   and 


70 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


farming;  the  women  in  basketry,  pottery,  and  blanket- 
weaving,  but  they  have  woefully  changed  their  manufac- 
ture of  the  last.  When  one  asks  for  a  Navajo  blanket 
today,  there  will  be  shown  a  thick,  heavy  rug,  fit  only  to 
place  on  the  floor,  or,  at  most,  on  top  of  a  bed,  a  blanket 
which  they  detest  and  which  they  call  us  fools  for  buy- 
ing. Seldom,  now,  can  one  find  that  old,  comfortable, 
light  garment  that  would  protect  one's  person  in  a  storm 
and  comfort  one's  body  in  sleep.  When  I  traveled  the 
plains  in  the  Fifties,  a  Navajo  blanket  was  a  beautiful 
and  light  article  of  clothing,  that  one  could  wrap  delight- 
fully about  his  body,  and  it  was  so  closely  woven  that  no 
wind  could  penetrate  it  nor  water  pass  through  it.  One 
of  its  chief  purposes  was  to  use,  when  properly  folded,  as 


Where   I    was    Entertained   for    Dinner 
DILL  OF  FARE: 

Came  con  papa  Pan  con  mantiquella 

Frijoles  pasada  por   agua  Huevos   fritos 

Cafe  con  leche  e  azucar 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  71 

a  bucket  to  water  one's  ponies  when  a  man  found  water 
the  ponies  could  not  reach.  I  asked  a  trader  what  had 
become  of  these  magnificient  blankets.  He  said  the  In- 
dians had  stopped  making  them  because  "the  trade"  de- 
manded the  rug  variety.  He  then  took  me  into  a  separate 
room  where  I  saw  some  of  my  old  friends  displayed  at 
three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  each.  They  had  ceased 
to  be  an  article  of  trade :  they  had  become  curios. 

The  Pueblo  Indian,  to  maintain  his  trading  propensity, 
possesses  three  different  currencies  and  three  different 
languages :  Spanish,  American,  and  Indian.  If  anyone 
thinks  the  Indian  does  not  understand  the  value  of  the 
first  two  currencies,  let  him  try  short-changing  him  to  be 
convinced  of  his  error ;  and  if  a  tourist  tries  trading  with 
him  in  the  third  currency  of  shells,  turquoise,  and  Indian 
trinkets,  his  good  spirit  must  certainly  protect  him,  or  he 
will  be  cheated  out  of  his  eye-teeth. 

Not  only  does  the  Pueblo  Indian  have  currency  and 
language  in  triplicate,  but  he  also  has  more  things  in  dupli- 
cate than  we  would  imagine.  He  has  two  religions :  his 
own  pagan  multiplicity  of  gods,  and  a  thin  veneer  of 
Catholicism  that  the  priests  have  added  thereto.  I  was 
told  at  the  Indian  Pueblo  of  Laguna  that  the  Catholic 
priest  there  said  that  the  Indians  were  "good  Catholics  in 
the  cathedrals  on  Sunday,  but  heathen  all  the  rest  of  the 
week."  They  have  two  marriages :  one  solemnized  in  the 
cathedral  and  blessed  by  the  priest,  and  the  other  made  in 
pagan  form. 

He  also  has  two  names :  his  Catholic  baptismal  name 
and  the  one  his  Indian  god-father  gave  him  at  some  In- 
dian feast,  the  latter  being  known  only  to  his  tribe  and 
friends.     The  womanly  woman  who  posed   for  the  pic- 


72  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

tures  on  the  opposite  page,  when  I  said  to  her, 
"What  is  your  Indian  name?''  looked  at  me  as  though  she 
would  know  whether  or  not  I  would  misuse  her  con- 
fidence, but  finally  gave  it  to  me.  I  cannot  violate  that 
confidence  and  pass  it  along  to  you ;  suffice  it  to  say  that  it 
was  as  musical  and  soft  as  the  ripple  of  the  stream  that 
flowed  past  the  Pueblo  where  she  lived.  He  has  two  codes 
of  law :  one  that  has  governed  the  Pueblo,  perhaps  since 
the  decalogue  was  given  to  Moses,  and  the  other  which  he 
acquired  in  1848,  when  Mexico  ceded  his  home  to  the 
United  States. 

In  person,  the  Pueblo  Indian  is  rather  below  the  me- 
dium in  stature ;  athletic,  plump,  and  pleasing  in  build ; 
frank  and  friendly  in  countenance ;  and  quite  ready  to  be 
a  "good  fellow"  and  to  meet  you  half  way  if  he  could 
only  find  time  from  his  work  and  the  many  religious 
dances  and  ceremonies  that  seem  to  demand  all  his 
energy  and  attention. 

The  Pueblos  have  now  all  the  domestic  animals  of 
their  white  brother,  but  at  the  time  the  Spaniards  found 
them  they  had  none  and,  save  for  the  very  limited  small 
game  the  desert  afforded,  they  were  agricultural  and 
vegetarian  in  their  habits  and  diet.  Their  crops  con- 
sisted of  beans,  melons,  squashes,  corn,  chili,  cotton,  etc. 
The  first  article  mentioned  is  of  such  excellent  quality 
that,  in  common  with  most  white  men,  I  prefer  it  to  the 
best  navy  variety. 

The  fact  that  they  had  no  domestic  animals,  and  that 
their  fields  were  often  at  great  distances  from  their 
pueblos,  permitted  the  location  of  their  towns  where,  in 
our  view,  there  was  insufficiency  of  water.  It  does  not  take 
much  water  per  capita  for  drinking  purposes,  and  bath- 
ing is  a  secondary  consideration  to  some  Indians.     Con- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN 


73 


Pueblo  Woman  Photographed  in  the  Quere  Pueblo  of 
Lacuna,  Arizona 


Showing  the  Back  of  the   same  Costume 

The  cloaklike  garment  is  blue,  the  dress  red,  and  the  aprons  and 

sleeves  white.    A  half  dozen  squaws  together  look 

like  one  end  of  a  rainbozv 


74 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


sequently,  wherever  they  found  a  reasonable  water-shed 
with  a  rock  reservoir,  and  a  stream  within  twenty  miles 
for  field  crops  and  emergency,  there  they  could  build  their 
pueblo.  For  example,  the  noted  typical  Pueblo  of  Acoma 
was  built  upon  a  flat  rock  about  seventy  acres  in  extent, 
its  top  standing  over  three  hundred  feet  above  the  adjoin- 
ing mesa  from  which  it  rises.  Its  sides  are  so  precipitous 
that  only  by  ladders  and  steps  cut  in  the  sides  of  the  cliff 
can  a  person  climb  to  the  summit.  Yet  wonderful  to  tell, 
upon  its  top,  from  time  immemorial,  there  has  existed  a 
pueblo  of  some  five  hundred  Indians.  More  wonderful 
still,  these  Indians  have  carried  up  that  precipice  materials 
for  a  cathedral  whose  walls  are  sixty  feet  high,  ten  feet 
thick,  and  occupy  proportionate  ground  space.  In  this 
cathedral  are  timbers  fourteen  inches  square  and  forty 
feet  long.  How  so  few  people  managed  to  perform  such 
Herculean  work  is  a  mystery. 


Replica  of  Hopi  Building  at  Grand  Canyon 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  75 

Being  a  Massachusetts  Yankee,  I  pride  myself  that  the 
old  town  meeting  system  of  the  Puritans  was  the  origin 
and  basis  of  our  republic.  Imagine  what  a  set-back  to 
my  conceit  it  was  when  I  found  here,  in  the  deserts  of  our 
southwest,  democracies  that  were  in  existence  perhaps 
ten  centuries  before  my  forefathers  landed  from  the  May- 
flower. In  some  respects,  their  democracy  is  superior  to 
ours.  With  them,  the  office  truly  seeks  the  man,  not  the 
man  the  office.  The  principal  civil  officer  of  the  Pueblo 
is  the  governor.  When  one  is  to  be  selected  there  is  no 
campaigning  for  votes.  Such  a  thing  would  be  positively 
fatal  to  any  person  desiring  the  office.  They  get  together 
and  select  the  man  most  desirable  for  the  place,  and  that 
man  must  serve  whether  he  wishes  to  or  not ;  they  will 
not  hesitate  to  punish  him  by  confinement  or  otherwise, 
should  he  prove  contumacious  on  that  point. 


'Community  House"  Pueblo  of  San  Domingo 
Built  of  Adobe 


76 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


The  family  of  the  Pueblo  Indian  is  monogamous,  and 
property  rights  and  genealogy  of  the  children  descend  by 
clan  law  through  the  mother.  The  woman  owns  the  house 
and  domestic  utensils ;  the  man  the  field  crops,  domestic 
animals,  and  farm  machinery.  In  other  words,  the  wife 
is  lord  of  the  house  and  all  inside,  and  the  husband  of 
the  property  outside.  This  freezes  the  man  out  of  a  home 
in  case  of  the  wife's  death,  desertion,  or  divorce,  because 
property  must  descend  by  Quere  law  inside  the  clan,  but 
husband  and  wife  cannot  belong  to  the  same  clan. 

In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  there  were 
sixty-five  pueblos,  now  they  are  reduced  to  twenty-four. 
They  were  built  on  the  communal  plan,  either  of  stone  or 
of  adobe,  on  the  cliffs,  in  the  cliffs,  on  the  high  mesa,  or 
in  the  river  valleys,  as  circumstances  seemed  to  demand 
or  desire  to  dictate. 

The  Pueblo  was  not  a  wandering  Indian,  yet  change 


Stone   Cathedral  at   Pueblo  of  Laguna 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  77 

of  environment  seemed  sometimes  to  compel  a  change  of 
residence.  Near  the  Rio  Grande  River,  not  far  southeast 
of  Santa  Fe,  is  located  the  Pueblo  of  Cochiti,  substantially 
the  same  as  it  was  in  1540  when  Coronado  found  it,  but 
this  place  was  not  their  original  home.  At  one  time  they 
are  said  to  have  lived  in  the  Rio  de  Los  Frijoles,  and 
from  there  they  moved,  at  different  times  and  for  various 
causes,  six  times  to  reach  their  present  home.  There  is 
evidence  to  show  that  the  residence  in  each  pueblo  may 
have  been  as  long  as  that  in  the  one  they  now  occupy. 
If  this  be  true,  it  would  mean  that  they  were  living  in 
the  Canyon  de  Los  Frijoles  perhaps  two  thousand  years 
before  Columbus  discovered  America. 

The  principal  points  of  interest  in  each  Pueblo  are  the 
cathedral  for  Catholic  worship  and  its  kiva  for  heathen 
ceremonies.  Upon  the  first  has  been  expended  all  the 
architectural  ability  of  the  old  mission ;  on  the  kiva  is 
worked  an  expression  of  the  Indian's  secret  and  super- 
stitious reverence.  The  kivas  are  built  largely  below 
ground  and  are  entered  from  the  top  by  ladder.  (See 
illustration  at  head  of  this  chapter.) 

Who  and  what  is  the  Pueblo  Indian  racially  and 
ethnologically  ?  I  have  seen  him  classified  in  several 
ways,  but  have  been  unable  to  reconcile  one  with  the 
other.  So,  as  a  free  and  untrammeled  citizen  of  this 
great  republic,  I  am  entitled  to  my  own  guess  on  the 
subject.  At  one  time  in  my  life  I  was  thrown  in  contact 
with  the  Maya  Indian  of  Yucatan,  Old  Mexico,  in  his 
home  and  in  his  native  environment.  I  was  forcibly  im- 
pressed with  the  wonderful  similarity  of  the  Mayas  of 
Old  Mexico  and  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  New  Mexico  and 
Arizona. 


;S  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

They  are  of  the  same  general  stature  and  appearance ; 
they  express  or  non-express  themselves  in  the  same  way ; 
neither  of  them  are  warriors ;  both  are  agriculturists ; 
both  raise  the  same  crops.  I  can  swear  that  the  frijoles 
that  the  Mayas  fed  me  in  Yucatan  were  of  the  identical 
varieties  that  I  ate  in  an  Arizona  Pueblo.  Both  types  of 
Indians,  at  times,  built  the  same  adobe  or  stone  houses, 
and  on  the  Potero  de  las  Vacas  near  Santa  Fe  the  Arizona 
Quere  tribe  left  sculptures  of  two  crouching  cougars, 
amply  proving  their  ability  to  make  carvings  like  those 
upon  the  temples  of  Old  Mexico  if  circumstances  per- 
mitted and  occasion  required.  They  both  have  also  the 
same  lax  ideas  of  marriage  and  strict  ideas  of  fidelity  and 
companionship. 

If  one  were  to  mix  a  number  of  the  two  peoples  to- 
gether it  would  not  be  possible  to  pick  out  the  one  from 
the  other  by  any  physical  characteristic. 

They  dress  differently,  of  course,  and  otherwise  dif- 
ferentiate, but  necessity  demands  it.  One  lives  near  the 
sea  level  in  the  latitude  of  twenty  degrees  north,  while 
the  other  has  his  habitation  in  an  altitude  of  five  thousand 
feet  and  a  latitude  of  about  thirty-five  degrees  north. 
The  Pueblo  Indian  is  conservative,  but,  when  necessary, 
adapts  himself  to  his  environment  and  conforms  his  habits 
to  his  necessity,  comfort,  and  pleasure. 

Bear  in  mind  that  these  Maya  Indians  of  Mexico, 
whereof  I  am  speaking,  lived  in  Yucatan,  not  modernized 
Vera  Cruz  or  half- Americanized  Mexico  City,  but  in  rural 
Yucatan,  when  the  "Conoa"  and  "Barco"  were  the  only 
means  of  transportation  on  water,  and  the  "Volanta"  and 
"Silla"  upon  land;  where  the  "Gringo"  was  still  a  cur- 
iosity  and   the   rancher   still    reigned   truly   lord   of   his 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN 


79 


thousands  of  acres.  Then  the  laboring  Indians  were 
working  for  from  five  to  ten  dollars  a  month,  Mexican 
money,  and  were  made  peons  for  life  should  they  get 
into  their  lordly  senor's  debt  as  much  as  one  hundred  dol- 
lars— a  dire  disaster  that  was  the  almost  certain  fate  of 
all.  A  peon  was  an  ignoble,  helpless,  hopeless  slave  — 
the  most  unfortunate  slave  on  earth ;  though  legally  a 
free  man,  he  was  bought  and  sold  by  the  transfer  of  his 
contract  to  his  employer,  followed  by  bloodhounds  and 
law  officers  and  returned  in  irons  if  he  evaded  its  terms 
or  attempted  to  change  residence  without  permission. 
All  this  bondage  and  slavery  persisted  because  he  could 
not  support  his  rapidly  growing  family  without  over- 
drawing his  account  a  few  dollars.  This  law  of  contracts 
applies  to  all  wage-workers,  white,  black,  or  red. 


Maya    Woman    Photographed    in    Yucatan,    Old    Mexico 
Compare  with  Pueblo  woman,  page  73 


8o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Under  these  conditions  I  found  nine-tenths  of  its  rural 
people  where  I  visited  in  Yucatan.  Notwithstanding  there 
is  absolute  political  equality  in  Mexico,  and  the  most 
humble  peon,  be  he  Indian,  mixed  blood,  or  Spaniard, 
may  become  president  of  the  republic,  still  I  have  never 
seen  before  and  hope  never  to  see  again  such  great  dis- 
tance in  social  standing  and  condition  between  the  poor 
and  the  rich,  the  laborer  and  the  employer,  as  existed  in 
this  land  which  prided  itself  upon  being  a  free  nation. 

I  found  the  Mayas  to  be  industrious,  cleanly,  con- 
tented, pleasant,  agricultural,  and  non-warlike  in  habits. 
But  for  two  faults  I  believe  they  would  make  a  magnifi- 
cent population  upon  which  to  build  a  solid  republic. 
These  faults  are  strong  drink  and  gambling.  In  the  Maya's 
present  aimless,  hopeless  condition  he  cannot  resist  the 
temptation  of  either.  I  think  that  were  he  given  an  out- 
look, with  education  and  a  chance  to  make  something  of 
himself  and  his  children,  he  could  and  would  conquer 
these  habits. 

As  a  typical  illustration  of  the  man  we  are  talking 
about,  I  must  relate  an  experience.  I  had  ridden  some 
fifteen  miles  to  a  nearby  ranch  upon  a  strange  horse. 
While  eating  my  dinner  and  visiting  the  ranchero,  my 
mount  performed  his  usual  trick — slipped  his  bridle  and 
got  away.  This  was  a  serious  matter  to  me ;  the  walk 
back  to  my  starting  point,  beneath  the  blazing  tropic  sun 
was  bad,  but  the  jeering  and  fun  that  I  should  be  com- 
pelled to  submit  to  when  I  got  there  would  be  worse,  far 
worse.  Soon  I  saw  a  mounted  Maya  Indian  with  a  lasso 
after  my  four-footed  deserter,  and  before  long  the  latter 
was  returned  to  me  safe  and  sound.  As  peons  in  Yucatan 
are  almost  universally  paid  in  goods,  store  checks,  and 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  INDIAN  81 

orders,  I  doubt  if  the  one  who  caught  and  brought  me  my 
horse  had  owned  as  much  as  a  dollar  in  real  money  for 
years — perhaps  never.  I  tried  to  give  him  one,  but  he 
refused  to  be  paid  for  what  he  thought  was  a  simple 
courtesy.  "Muchos  gracias"  (many  thanks)  was  all  he 
would  receive  from  me  and  he  seemed  to  consider  that 
ample. 

This  act  was  so  characteristic  of  the  Maya  Indian  of 
that  time  that,  trusting  to  his  good  faith  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts, and  to  an  Iowa  Governor's  commission  which  I 
carried  to  prevent  extortion  by  the  petty  officials  in  the 
small  towns,  I  contemplated  a  ride,  alone,  across  the  coun- 
try from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  Guatemala  or  some  other 
point.  But  fate  in  the  shape  of  a  tropic  disease  prevented. 
The  time  I  had  assigned  for  such  an  interesting  ride  was 
spent  on  a  sick  bed,  in  a  Spanish  hotel  where  no  soul 
could  speak  a  word  of  English  save  myself. 

Now  regarding  the  relationship  between  the  Mayas  of 
old  Mexico  and  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  Arizona  and  New 
Mexico,  I  have  a  theory  that  I  think  has  a  better  basis  of 
known  facts  than  any  other  I  have  seen.  The  Maya 
Indian,  according  to  the  best  authorities,  is  a  descendant 
of  the  builders  of  those  wonderful  cities  of  Yucatan 
and  Central  America,  like  Mitla,  Palanque,  Copan,  and 
Uxmal.  The  edifices  in  the  rural  districts  of  that  region 
have  now  crumbled  to  mounds  upon  which  gigantic  ma- 
hogany, zapate,  colalox,  pupe,  and  other  near-tropic  trees 
flourish  as  though  it  were  a  forest  primeval  and  not  the 
grave  of  mighty  people.  The  ruins  of  the  cities  have  been 
examined  and  described  many  times,  but  the  ruins  of 
the  rural  mounds  have  never  been  systematically  explored. 


82  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

I  have  done  this  partially,  and  my  greatest  regret  for  the 
last  two  decades  I  have  lived  is  that  the  years  have  made 
me  too  old  to  finish  that  task. 

Writers  who  have  investigated  the  history  of  the 
people  who  built  these  cities,  and  who  I  believe  are  cor- 
rect, say  they  originated  from  the  Mound  Builders  of  the 
Mississippi  valley,  who  migrated  into  Central  America 
and  Yucatan  through  Mexico,  centuries  upon  centuries 
before  even  the  Aztecs  settled  in  the  latter  region.  All  this 
being  true,  may  not  the  Pueblos  of  the  Southwest  be 
detachments  of,  or  colonies  left  by,  this  Maya  march  as  it 
passed  through  this  land  in  the  long,  long,  prehistoric  and 
pre-Aztec  age? 


PART    II 


THE 
SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  85 

CHAPTER   VII 
SOME  "IMPOSSIBLE"  ACHIEVEMENTS 

Buster  and  1  both  were  boys  and  playmates.  He,  in 
his  first  youth,  was  nearly  ten  years  of  age  and  had  devel- 
oped an  abnormal  love  for  history.  I,  in  my  second  youth, 
had  seen  more  than  eighty  seasons  pass,  and,  mattering 
little  that  we  were  grandfather  and  grandson,  I  valiantly 
contested  with  him  for  first  place  in  interested  study  of 
anything  and  everything  connected  with  the  growth  of 
our  country. 

It  was  a  beautiful  fall  afternoon,  one  of  those  days 
when  nature  seemed  to  have  clad  herself  in  brightest 
array  especially  to  call  boys,  of  any  age,  out  of  doors  to 
play  with  her.  The  temptation  irresistibly  allured  me. 
Turning  to  the  smaller  boy  I  said,  "Buster,  do  you  remem- 
ber anything  about  the  Massacre  of  Chicago?" 

"Yes,  Grandpa,  what  of  it?"  said  he. 

"Do  you  know  the  place  where  the  Indians  committed 
the  murder?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  he  replied,  "but  I  would  give  a  whole  lot  to  see 
it.     Do  you  think  we  can  find  it?" 

"Of  course  we  can,"  I  answered.  "Wherever  the  spot 
may  be,  it  is  marked  by  a  beautiful  monument.  I  know 
it,  because  I  have  seen  a  replica  beneath  the  dome  of 
Iowa's  State  House." 

"Then  let  us  go  and  hunt  for  it,"  was  our  enthusiastic 
mutual  decision,  and  we  started  out  on  our  trip  of  dis- 
covery. 

Of  course,  we  could  have  consulted  a  directory  or 
guidebook  and  found  exactly  where  the  object  stands,  but 


86  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

that  would  never  do,  it  would  change  a  tour  of  discovery 
into  a  "simple  sight-seeing  trip,  and  spoil  half  the  fun.  The 
monument  must  be  on  the  lake  shore  and  north  of  our 
street — Hyde  Park  Boulevard — because  the  evacuating 
column  followed  the  lake  shore,  and  between  the  evacua- 
tion of  the  fort  and  the  massacre  of  its  late  occupants 
time  would  not  have  permitted  it  to  have  traveled  farther 
south  then  this. 

The  park  policemen  were  the  first  victims  of  our 
question,  "Do  you  know  where  the  Chicago  Massacre 
Monument  is?" 

Those  we  asked  said  "No,  we  know  nothing  of  either 
the  massacre  or  the  monument."  We  kept  on  north  along 
the  lake  shore,  persecuting  all  we  met  with  the  same 
question  with  like  results.  Finally  I  cornered  a  yard-man 
of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  and  said,  "Now,  you  work 
up  and  down  this  line  several  times  a  day,  every  time  you 
go  up  you  must  pass  the  monument  we  want  to  see.  Can't 
you  remember  where  it  is?" 

He  thought  awhile  and  replied,  "There  is  some  sort  of 
monument  about  Eighteenth  Street,  but  what  it  is  for, 
I  haven't  the  slightest  idea." 

There  we  found  the  object  of  our  search,  a  beautiful 
monument  built  to  commemorate  one  of  the  chief  events 
of  early  Chicago ;  yet  the  city  guardians  and  many  of  its 
citizens  knew  nothing  of  either  the  event  or  its  memorial ; 
others  who  may  see  it  daily,  know  not  and  care  not  what 
it  represents. 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  87 


Massacre    Monument,    Chicago 


88  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

But  we,  the  two  boys,  who  that  day  looked  upon  it  for 
the  first  time,  saw  it  with  no  such  indifferent  eyes.  There 
before  us  were  represented  some  of  the  circumstances  of 
that  strife.  Upon  the  ground  lies  the  post  surgeon,  Dr. 
Van  Voores,  who  sadly  misrepresents  the  army,  for  he 
was  the  only  one  who  did  not  fight  bravely  but  spent  his 
time  until  killed  bemoaning  his  fate.  Beside  him  is  a 
baby  typifying  innocence  slain.  And  there,  dragged  from 
her  horse,  is  Mrs.  Helm,  struggling  for  her  life  as  an 
Indian  tries  to  tomahawk  her,  while  she  endeavors  to 
draw  the  red  man's  scalping  knife  from  its  sheath  upon 
his  breast.  Above  them  both  towers  Black  Partridge, 
holding  back  the  warriors  and  protecting  the  women. 

How  this  sight  affected  the  younger  boy  I  know  not, 
but  the  mind  of  the  older  one  visualized  a  far  different 
scene  from  the  one  before  him.  The  beautiful  residences, 
the  long,  paved  streets,  the  many-tracked  railroads,  the 
plying  boats  upon  the  lake,  and  even  the  monument  itself 
faded  away ;  and  there  came  into  his  mind  the  vision  of  a 
clean  lake  shore  and  a  virgin  prairie,  separated  only  by  a 
line  of  sand  hills,  all  untouched  by  any  mark  of  civiliza- 
tion save  the  indistinct  ruts  of  a  little-used  wagon  road. 
From  the  top  of  the  sand  hill  could  be  seen  towards  the 
north,  a  small  fort  not  much  larger  than  a  good-sized 
trading  post,  and  gathered  around  it  were  several  frontier 
buildings.  In  his  vision  the  fort  is  being  evacuated  by 
orders  from  the  commanding  general.  The  garrison  leaves 
— its  band  prophetically  playing  the  "Dead  March"  from 
Saul — and  marches  toward  where  we  stand.  The  Indians 
enter  the  stockade.  Soon,  they  angrily  emerge;  they  have 
been  deceived.  They  had  been  promised  by  the  commander 
of  the  fortification  that  they  would  be  given  the  contents 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  89 

of  the  fort  not  taken  away  by  its  occupants,  if  they  would 
escort  the  garrison  to  a  place  of  safety.  They  found  when 
they  entered  that  the  things  they  most  cared  for — arms, 
ammunition,  and  whiskey — had  all  heen  destroyed.  Prom- 
ised friends  had  thus  heen  turned  into  certain  enemies. 
Black  Partridge,  a  chief  of  the  Pottawatomies,  the  sur- 
rounding tribe  of  Indians,  square,  red  gentleman  that 
he  was,  when  he  understood  hefore  the  evacuation,  what 
was  going  on,  came  to  Captain  Heald,  the  commander  of 
the  fort,  and  returned  the  medal  that  had  been  given  him 
by  our  Government.  He  would  not  wear  a  favor  from  a 
people  whom  he  would  soon  be  compelled  to  fight. 

I  seem  to  see  the  column  from  the  fort  advancing 
toward  the  place  of  the  monument  in  long  line.  First,  on 
ponies,  comes  a  squad  of  Miami  Indians  as  advance 
guard.  Then,  upon  a  fine,  blooded  horse  rides  gallant 
Captain  Wells,  who  risked  his  life,  and  lost  it,  to  bring 
aid  and  advice  to  the  fort.  Then  follow  the  garrison, 
regular  soldiers  and  militiamen;  after  them  the  train  of 
wagons,  containing  the  women,  children,  supplies,  and 
equipage.  Mrs.  Heald  and  Mrs.  Helm  are  riding  horse- 
back where  they  will.  Finally  a  guard  of  the  Miamis 
brings  up   the  rear. 

It  is  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  advance 
guard  reaches  the  place  of  the  monument.  Now  one  can 
see  that  Captain  Wells  has  his  face  blackened,  the  red 
man's  token  of  war  and  death.  Border  man  and  Indian 
fighter  that  he  was,  he  knew  what  would  be  the  result  of 
destroying  the  stores  in  the  fort;  and  knowing  it  well, 
soldier  and  patriot  that  he  also  was,  he  urged  their  de- 
struction rather  than  place  the  arms  and  ammunition  in 
the  hands  of  a  tribe  which  under  the  influence  of  Great 


90  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Britain  was  likely  to  become  hostile  to  the  United  States. 
No  soldier  ever  gave  his  life  for  his  country  more  surely 
than  he,  and  the  heroic  figure  in  the  memorial  should 
have  been  his. 

The  advance  guard  passes  and  part  of  the  marching 
regulars  arrive,  when  Captain  Wells,  wheeling  quickly 
with  his  horse,  comes  galloping  back,  swinging  his  hat  to 
indicate  that  the  whole  party  is  surrounded,  and  shout- 
ing to  Captain  Heald,  "They  are  about  to  attack  us ! 
Form  instantly  and  charge  them !"  Immediately  the  war- 
painted  heads  of  hundreds  of  savages  appear  above  the 
sand  hills ;  battle  cries  and  war  whoops,  musket  shot  and 
stifling  gun  powder  smoke  fill  the  air.  The  soldiers  charge, 
but  the  red  enemy  yields  before  them  only  to  press  them 
more  closely  behind  ;  yelling  demons  climb  into  the  wagons 
and  butcher  the  women  and  children ;  Captain  Wells  falls, 
but  six  red  warriors  slain  by  his  own  hand,  escort  him 
hence.  The  soldiers  fight  bravely,  but  what  can  a  few 
men,  encumbered  by  a  train  of  women  and  children,  do 
against  a  multitude?  Almost  within  the  time  you  have 
been  reading  this,  over  fifty  soldiers,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, dead  and  dying,  lie  upon  the  ground ;  all  the  rest 
are  prisoners. 

The  bleak,  houseless  prairie,  the  unfretted  lake  shore, 
and  the  awful  battlefield  fade  away;  the  present  returns. 
The  ground  that  was  wet  with  the  blood  of  the  slaughtered 
pioneers  now  lies,  marked  by  its  memorial  group,  almost 
in  the  geographical  center  of  a  city  twenty-six  miles  long, 
reaching  fourteen  miles  west,  covering  nearly  two  hun- 
dred square  miles  of  territory,  and  containing  nearly 
three  million  people.  Over  the  ground  where  the  battle 
was  fought,  thunders  scores  of  railroad  trains  which  carry 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  91 

untold  wealth  to  and  from  the  whole  world  and  which 
daily  transport  approximately  fifty  thousand  passengers, 
yet  here  are  only  three  of  the  thirty-three  roads  that  end 
in  Chicago.  Should  some  soldier  who  died  that  day  re- 
turn like  Rip  Van  Winkle,  he  would  find  four  thousand 
seven  hundred  miles  of  streets  upon  which  to  travel ;  had 
he  children,  he  could  send  them  to  any  of  two  hundred 
and  ninety-nine  schools ;  he  and  his  family  could  ride 
upon  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  sur- 
face and  elevated  street  car  lines ;  they  might  worship  in 
any  one  of  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  forty  churches, 
and  have  a  choice  of  twenty  different  languages  in  which 
to  hear  the  Word  preached. 

And  this  great  change  from  a  primitive  wilderness 
to  a  mighty  city  has  not  taken  the  ages  that  London  and 
Paris  and  Vienna,  all  newer  cities  of  the  Old  World, 
have  required ;  nor  the  centuries  that  Boston  and  New 
York  and  New  Orleans  and  others  of  our  land  have  used 
in  their  making.  For  Chicago,  the  giant  of  the  West,  my 
life  time  is  almost  enough  to  cover  its  growth.  Move  my 
birthday  back  but  ten  years  and  the  time  is  sufficient; 
for  the  mas.sacre  we  have  attempted  to  describe  occurred 
as  late  as  1812,  and  Chicago,  as  a  town,  was  not  incorp- 
orated until  more  than  a  score  of  years  after  that  time. 
Then  it  became  a  town  under  provision  of  statute  that 
allowed  one  hundred  and  fifty  persons  to  organize  upon 
not  more  than  one  square  mile  of  territory. 

This  unprecedented  growth  is  one  of  the  things  that 
the  famous  liar,  Baron  Munchausen,  would  not  have 
dared  to  foretell.  Had  he  been  willing  to  brave  the  risk, 
his  imagination  could  not  have  reached  the  actual  facts. 
He  would  have  been  like  the  early  promoters  of  the  city 


92  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

who  seemed  to  have  been  close  rivals  of  the  Baron  both  in 
wealth  of  imagination  and  boldness  of  statement.  About 
the  year  1870  I  attended  a  banquet  where  one  of  these 
boomers  of  the  old  city  was  called  upon  for  a  toast.  In 
response  he  said  that  when  the  real  estate  men  of  early 
Chicago  printed  and  circulated  their  prospectus  and  ad- 
vertisment  in  which  they  predicted  what  the  city  would 
be  in  the  future,  they  lied  as  much,  as  largely,  and  as 
strongly  as  they  possibly  could ;  but  the  city  in  its  devel- 
opment had  so  beaten  their  prophesies  that  they  were 
ashamed  of  the  weakness  of  their  supposed  gigantic 
imaginations. 

I  passed  through  Chicago  in  185 1,  a  year  before  any 
railroad  ever  reached  it  from  the  East.  I  have  been  there 
often  since,  sometimes  for  years  as  a  resident,  sometimes 
as  a  visitor,  and  sometimes  as  a  spectator.  Although  I 
consider  that  my  adopted  home  and  first  love  is  west  of 
the  Mississippi  River,  this  city  is  my  second  love,  and  I 
have  kept  constant  watch  of  her  phenomenal  advance- 
ment. 

The  First  Court  House 

The  square  in  this  city  bounded  by  Washington,  Clark, 
Randolph,  and  La  Salle  Streets,  has  from  the  first  been 
devoted  to  civic  purposes.  There  the  county  and  the  city 
have  united  in  erecting  buildings  for  their  joint  govern- 
mental affairs.  Nothing  in  Chicago  is  more  typical  of  the 
fortune,  misfortune,  and  growth  of  the  city  than  the 
changes  that  have  taken  place  on  and  about  this  square. 
Six  combined  city  halls  and  court  houses  have  been  built 
upon  this  ground.    I  have  seen  them  all,  been  in  them  all, 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


93 


some  of  the  many  times,  and  I  know  of  no  better  text 
around  which  to  gather  some  facts  of  the  city's  growth 
than  these  buildings. 

The  first  court  house  was  built  in  1836,  principally 
if  not  entirely  for  court  house  purposes.  It  was  of  brick, 
classic  in  style,  with  four  Doric  columns  and  a  flight  of 
steps  in  front,  and  was  really  a  very  neat  house  for  a 
rough  western  place.  When  this  was  erected,  the  "Chi- 
ca-gou,"  our  Indian  onion,  from  which  the  settlement  was 
named,  still  grew  along  the  margin  of  the  river.  Not 
long  before  that  time,  lots  eighty  by  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  had  sold  in  the  surrounding  squares  at  auction 
for  from  twenty-four  to  seventy-four  dollars  each.  The 
extent  of  the  town  limits  was  then  two  and  two-fifths 
square  miles,  but  it  was  just  beginning  its  permanent 
growth.  Its  commerce  had  increased  from  four  vessels 
of  a  total  tonnage  of  seven  hundred  in  1833,  to  four 
hundred  and  fifty  vessels  with  a  total  tonnage  of  sixty 
thousand  in   1836. 


Thk  First  Court  House  and  Jail,  1836 
Loaned  by  the  Chicago  Historical  Society 


94  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  next  year,  1837,  a  special  charter  was  procured 
and  Chicago  was  incorporated  as  a  city,  with  a  limit  of 
ten  square  miles  and  a  determination  to  beat  all  creation. 
Strange  to  say,  the  fact  upon  which  she  predicted  her  fu- 
ture greatness  was  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  canal.  It 
was  upon  becoming  a  great  station  on  a  mighty  water- 
way, connecting  the  Atlantic  Ocean  with  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  that  the  city  relied  for  success.  No  one  then 
thought  of  the  railroad  as  a  factor;  had  any  one  dared 
then  and  there  to  tell  them  that  the  canal  would  be  almost 
unheard  of  and  unfelt  among  more  forceful  causes,  they 
would  have  wanted  to  hang  him  to  a  lamp  post,  if  at  that 
time  they  possessed  such  a  thing. 

But  this  court  house  stood  to  see  the  beginnings  of  the 
real  cause  of  Chicago's  power — the  railroads.  It  saw  the 
Galena  and  Chicago  Railroad  start  out  in  1848  and  build 
clear  to  the  Des  Plaines  River,  ten  miles,  and  heard  the 
jollification  that  accompanied  the  first  in-shipment  of  one 
wagonload  of  wheat  from  the  West.  It  also  witnessed 
the  celebration  that  accompanied  the  arrival  of  the  first 
train  upon  the  first  railroad  to  reach  Chicago  from  the 
East,  the  Michigan  Southern,  in  February,  1852.  It  was 
still  standing  when  the  Galena  and  Chicago  Railroad  was 
running  its  tri-daily  trains — tri-daily  in  this,  that  they 
went  out  in  the  morning  and  tried  to  get  back  at  night — 
and  when  the  officials  of  the  same  used  to  climb  into  the 
observatory  of  their  old  depot  at  Kinzie  and  Canal  Streets 
with  telescopes  to  watch  for  the  coming  of  the  old  locomo- 
tive, "Pioneer,"  with  its  mixed  load  of  freight  and  pas- 
sengers. Sometimes  they  would  deliberate,  after  a  long 
wait,  whether  or  not  to  send  a  man  on  horse  to  find  if 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  95 

the  cars  were  coming,  or  if  they  had  slid  off  from  the 
rails  of  strap  iron  and  wood,  of  which  the  railroad  was 
built,  and  were  lying  somewhere  in  the  ditch. 

In  1842  an  anomaly  in  legal  proceedings  occurred  on 
the  front  steps  of  this  court  house — the  sale  of  a  negro 
in  a  state  having  a  free  constitution.  Notwithstanding  its 
apparent  impossibility,  the  transaction  was  perfectly  legal 
under  the  then  existing  laws.  The  man  had  been  arrested 
as  a  runaway  slave,  he  had  been  kept  some  time  with- 
out anyone  claiming  him,  and  now  he  was  to  be  sold  for 
the  expenses  of  arrest  and  incarceration.  The  anti-slavery 
people  billed  the  city  to  witness  this  most  illogical  event. 
There  was  a  large  gathering  and  the  sheriff  feared 
personal  violence.  At  first  there  were  no  bidders,  but 
many  offensive  remarks.  Finally  a  man  jokingly  offered 
twenty-five  cents ;  the  sheriff  snapped  at  the  bid  as  a  trout 
would  at  a  fly.  The  money  was  paid ;  the  new  master 
gave  the  man  his  liberty ;  and  the  incident  was  closed. 

It  was  while  this  building  stood  that  the  principal 
streets  were  often  so  soft  and  deep  with  mud  that  teams 
were  mired  and  wagons  abandoned,  and  cautioning  signs 
were  erected  along  the  way,  sometimes  in  earnest  and 
sometimes  in  fun,  ''No  bottom,"  "Nearest  way  to  China," 
"Danger."  Then  and  there  the  old  hoary  story  was  said 
to  have  started,  of  the  man  going  along  the  street  so  deep 
in  the  mud  that  only  his  hat  showed.  Some  friend  called 
to  him,  "Bill,  do  you  need  any  help?" 

"No,"  came  the  reply.  "I  don't  need  any  help,  I've 
got  a  good  horse  under  me." 


96 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


Stone  pavements  were  useless — the  stones  soon  sank 
beyond  useful  depth.  In  1848  and  1850,  three  miles  of 
streets  were  planked  forty-eight  feet  wide,  at  a  cost  of 
thirty-one  thousand  dollars. 

Finally  this  first  public  building,  erected  in  1836,  hav- 
ing for  seventeen  years  served  the  city  and  county,  and 
having  seen  the  settlement  grow  from  an  incorporated 
town  of  less  than  four  thousand  to  a  city  of  more  than 
thirty  thousand,  passed  away  and  made  room  for  the 
second  building. 

The  Second  Court  House 

In  1853  the  county  and  city  united  in  building,  under 
one  roof  and  one  harmonious  plan,  a  joint  city  hall  and 


The  Second  Court  House 
Loaned  by  the  Chicago  Historical  Society 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  97 

county  court  house.  It  was  completed  and  occupied  about 
a  year  before  I  came  to  the  city  a  second  time  to  hunt 
my  fortune. 

I  was  a  boy  fourteen  years  of  age,  a  stranger,  with  a 
total  wealth  of  $1.50  and  not  a  friend  in  all  the  city.  I 
cannot  recall  the  exact  place  where  I  finally  found  a  loca- 
tion, but  it  was  in  State  Street  near  where  the  Palmer 
House  now  stands.  That  street  was  then  largely  built  up 
of  one-  and  two-story,  false  front,  wood  structures,  and 
in  one  of  them  I  found  a  room  suitable  to  my  lack  of 
means. 

It  was  in  the  winter.  The  job  I  had  captured  could 
not  afford  me  a  warm  room,  so  I  had  the  choice  of  spend- 
in  my  evenings  in  my  cold  room,  the  city  street,  or  the 
saloon.  A  few  nights  in  the  last  was  sufficient  to  disgust 
me,  and  I  was  limited  to  the  first  two  alternatives.  I 
compromised  by  dividing  my  time  between  them :  I  would 
walk  the  streets  until  I  was  cold  and  tired,  then  go  to  my 
room  and  to  bed. 

Thanks,  many  grateful  thanks,  to  the  men  and. women 
of  Chicago  with  generous  heart  and  lavish  hand,  who, 
by  their  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  their  free  reading  rooms,  their  night 
schools,  their  settlement  work,  and  other  liberal  provi- 
sions, have  said  to  the  world  that  "Never  again,"  as  I  did, 
"shall  a  friendless  boy  walk  the  streets  in  the  dead  of 
winter,  or  any  other  time,  seeking  warmth  and  welcome 
and  finding  none." 

In  1855  the  Galena  and  Chicago  Railroad  installed 
along  its  lines  from  Chicago  to  Freeport  an  invention 
highly  recommended  by  some,  but  held  to  be  of  doubtful 
utility  by  many.     This  new  and  untried  invention  was  a 


98  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

telegraph.  It  worked  satisfactorily,  and  thenceforth  there 
was  no  more  watching  with  a  telescope  from  the  observa- 
tory of  the  depot  for  late  trains,  or  sending  a  man  on 
horseback  to  hunt  missing  ones. 

During  the  standing  of  this  court  house,  the  streets 
of  the  business  part  of  the  city  were  unsanitary,  unsightly, 
and  in  wet  weather  almost  impassable.  To  remedy  all 
three  of  these  conditions,  the  unprecedented  and  gigantic 
project  was  designed  and  carried  to  a  successful  conclu- 
sion of  raising  the  whole  business  district — its  buildings, 
its  streets,  and  its  sidewalks — from  seven  to  fifteen  feet. 

This  tremendous  undertaking  called  for  the  assistance 
of  the  best  engineers  in  the  country,  and  they  came  from 
all  quarters  to  help.  Among  others,  I  think  from  Cin- 
cinnati, was  the  later  noted  George  M.  Pullman,  who 
really  began  his  career  when  he  raised  the  Tremont 
House,  at  that  time  the  largest  building  in  Chicago.  He 
accomplished  the  feat  without  breaking  a  window,  crack- 
ing a  wall,  or  jamming  a  door.  No  employee  or  guest  of 
the  hotel  was  discommoded  during  the  process,  either  in 
his  room  or  at  table.  If  necessary  litter  upon  the  street 
front  and  workmen  beneath  the  building  had  not  been 
noticed,  no  one  would  have  known  what  was  going  on. 
Afterward,  whole  blocks  were  raised  without  interruption 
of,  or  confusion  in,  the  various  forms  of  business  therein 
conducted. 

Of  necessity,  all  the  owners  of  property  in  a  block 
could  not  be  ready  to  raise  their  buildings  at  the  same 
time.  The  result  was  that  sometimes  part  of  the  stores 
would  be  raised  and  part  not.  Each  merchant  insisted 
that  the  sidewalk  must  conform  to  the  grade  of  his  store 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


99 


floor.  Therefore  it  soon  appeared  that  walking  along  a 
street  in  those  days  was  a  constant  succession  of  going 
upstairs  to  the  higher  level  and  downstairs  to  the  lower. 

Third   Court  House  and  City  Hall 
And  now,  in  the  late  fifties,  as  the  second  court  house 
and  city  hall  again  proved  itself  too  small  for  necessary 
business,  the  county  and  city  officials  decided  to  construct 


Chicago  Court  House,  Viewed  from  the  Northwest,  i! 
Loaned  by  the  Chicago   Historical  Society 


ioo  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

practically  a  new  building,  by  taking  off  the  roof  of  the 
old  one  and  adding  another  story.  This  was  done,  and 
the  old  building  which  had  served  a  city  of  a  little  over 
thirty  thousand  inhabitants  and  which  determined  the 
grade  of  the  whole  business  section,  now  passed  on  and 
left  to  its  successor  over  a  hundred  thousand  people,  a 
lake  traffic  greatly  increased,  and  a  railroad  system  fairly 
inaugurated. 

When  the  story  was  added  to  court  house  number  two 
a  large  cupola  -was  erected,  and  in  it  an  enormous  bell 
was  installed  the  alarm  note  of  which  could  be  heard  to 
the  utmost  corporate  limits.  To  this  bell  the  fire  alarm 
system  of  the  city  was  attached.  When  necessity  demanded 
the  bell  clanged  forth  the  general  alarm  and  added  the 
ward  where  danger  menaced.  I  well  remember  that  bell. 
Its  sonorous  call  to  action  when  fire  threatened  was 
strangely  exciting.  First  its  loud,  rapid  alarm  filled  the 
air  with  deafening  clang  for  thirty  to  sixty  seconds.  Then 
every  man  in  the  business  section  stopped  to  listen ;  the 
lawyer  ceased  his  plea,  the  shop-keeper  and  his  customer 
stopped  their  trading,  the  working  man  paused  with  his 
hammer  in  the  air,  all  waiting  for  the  ward  number;  it 
comes,  one,  two,  three,  four — ward  four.  Men  of  that 
ward  were  permitted  and  expected  to  rush  out  to  make 
sure  that  their  individual  property  was  in  no  danger ;  all 
others  resumed  their  pleasures  or  occupations. 

But  the  duty  of  fire  alarm  was  not  the  only  office  held 
by  this  bell.  It  was  the  herald  of  the  town.  It  rang  the 
note  of  war  when  Sumter  was  fired  upon ;  it  sounded 
peals  of  rejoicing  when  the  news  of  the  victories  of 
Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg  reached  us ;  it  almost  broke 
itself  with  joy  when  Lee  surrendered;  and,  dolefully  tol- 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  101 

ling,  it  sobbed  its  sorrow  when  Lincoln,  son  of  its  state 
and  martyr  for  its  nation,  lay  in  state  beneath  its  dome, 
while  thousands  upon  thousands  of  citizens  mournfully 
passed  for  a  farewell  gaze  upon  the  beloved  remains. 

In  my  memory  the  most  significant  and  exciting  note 
ever  heard  from  the  bell  was  on  the  tenth  day  of  May, 
1869,  when  the  two  ends  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad 
came  together  at  Promontory  Point  in  Utah,  and  the  two 
halves  of  our  country  were  physically  united  for  the  first 
time.  Great  preparations  had  been  made.  Prominent 
men  from  the  East  and  the  West  met  at  that  junction. 
Telegraphic  connections  were  made  so  that  every  stroke 
of  the  sledge  in  driving  the  last  spike — a  gold  one — could 
be  flashed  across  the  country  to  the  Chicago  court  house 
and  tallied  by  the  bell. 

Everything  was  ready  in  the  city  and  harbor,  and  at 
the  appointed  time  business  was  called  off  and  everyone 
was  waiting.  At  length  came  the  "dong,  dong,  dong," 
from  the  driven  spike.  Then  pandemonium  broke  loose. 
Every  tug  and  steamer  on  the  lake  or  the  harbor  blew  its 
whistle;  the  churches,  the  schoolhouses,  and  the  public 
buildings  clanged  their  bells ;  work  shops  and  factories 
blared  their  semaphores;  and  if  there  was  anything  mov- 
able or  immovable  capable  of  making  a  noise  that  was 
not  utilized  that  day,  I  do  not  know  what  it  was.  Chicago 
was  out  for  a  jollification,  and  she  had  it  in  the  Chicago 
way — thoroughly,  enthusiastically,  good-naturedly,  and 
with  a  bang. 

Of  the  six  court  houses  of  the  city,  this  might  be 
called  the  heroic  one.  It  was  built  when  the  country  was 
supposed  by  many  to  be  a  temporary  gathering  of  states, 
one-half  slave  and  one-half  free;  at  a  time  when  it  was 


102  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

possible  for  a  man,  apparently  as  white  as  any  of  us,  to 
be  shackled  under  its  dome  and  returned  to  slavery  for 
life,  just  because  some  particular  woman  had  been  his 
mother.  It  finally  stood  in  a  united  country,  "one  and 
indivisible,"  where  every  man  was  actually  "born  free  and 
equal."  To  accomplish  this  the  people  had  voluntarily 
sent  forth  their  sons  by  thousands  and  their  money  by 
millions ;  they  had  cheered  regiment  after  regiment  of 
northwestern  boys  as  they  marched  through  their  streets, 
going  south,  and  welcomed  them  on  their  return  home. 

During  those  days,  I  owed  the  city  my  personal  grati- 
tude for  several  days'  needed  shelter  in  their  "Soldier's 
Rest."  That  rest,  as  I  remember  it,  stood  on  Michigan 
Avenue  about  where  the  Art  Institute  is  now  located,  of 
perhaps  farther  north.  Its  front  was  on  the  avenue,  and 
its  rear,  for  about  two-thirds  of  its  length,  was  supported 
by  piles  driven  in  the  lake.  This  was  not  because  the 
building  was  over  a  mile  long,  as  would  be  necessary  to 
make  that  condition  today,  but  because,  from  Randolph 
Street  to  Park  Row,  Michigan  Avenue  was  then  the  west 
shore  of  Lake  Michigan.  The  city  at  one  time  canopied 
the  streets  around  the  court  house  and  turned  them  into 
a  magnificent  voluntary  gift-offering,  when  the  Sanitary 
Commission  held  their  great  fair  for  the  benefit  of  our 
then  "boys  in  blue." 

By  1864,  the  growth  of  the  city  had  polluted  the  water 
supply  to  an  unbearable  degree.  When  the  wind  was  in 
certain  directions,  the  foul  river  and  noxious  sewer  out- 
flow, in  place  of  going  to  the  depths  of  the  lake,  would 
seek  the  intake  of  the  water  system  and  carry  disease  and 
death  with  it.  For  the  safety  of  the  city  these  water 
intakes  must  be  at  least  two  miles  out  in  the  lake.     How 


THE  SETTLING  OE  THE  WEST 


103 


could  this  be  done  ?  Engineers  solved  the  problem.  Near 
the  water  works,  a  well  was  dug  ninety  feet  deep.  Out  in 
the  lake  two  miles,  by  the  aid  of  an  octagonal  coffer-dam, 
another  well,  eighty-five  feet  below  the  surface  of  the 
water,  was  also  dug.  Then  by  digging  from  the  bottom  of 
each  well  a  tunnel  two  miles  long  was  constructed,  so 
carefully,  and  so  scientifically,  that  no  lives  were  lost; 
and  when  the  two  ends  joined  there  was  scarcely  an  inch 
of  difference  in  position  or  size  of  the  two  excavations. 
This  satisfactorily  provided  for  Chicago's  water  supply. 
The  Fourth  Court  House  and  City  Hall 
In  1870  a  substantially  new  building  was  again  made. 
The  county  erected  a  large  wing  on  the  west  of  the  old 
court  house  and  the  city  a  like  one  on  the  east,  thus  prac- 


The    Fourth    Court    House 
Loaned  by  Chicago  Historical  Society 


io4  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

tically  making  the  fourth  court  house  and  city  hall.  This 
might  be  called  the  tragic  building  of  the  series.  It  had 
hardly  been  completed  and  occupied  when  the  giant  bell, 
still  retained  in  its  cupola,  rang  out  the  fire  alarm  that 
proved  its  own  death  knell. 

About  an  hour  before  midnight  of  October  8th  and 
9th,  1871,  was  sounded  the  first  alarm  note  that  awoke 
the  city  for  the  Great  Chicago  Fire.  The  alarm  was 
repeated  again,  and  again  until  the  bell's  mighty  voice  was 
stilled  by  suffocation  in  the  ruins  of  its  own  home. 

Among  great  conflagrations  this  fire  is  an  anomaly, 
because  it  seemed  bound  by  no  rules  save  those  of  its  own 
making.  It  broke  out  in  some  wooden  houses  and  stables 
near  Jefferson  and  DeKoven  Streets,  in  the  southwest 
part  of  the  city.  Before  daylight,  pushed  by  a  wind  from 
the  southwest,  it  swept  clean  a  strip  toward  the  northeast, 
a  block  or  two  wide. and  about  four  miles  long,  clear  to 
the  water  works  and  the  old  cemetery, upon  the  north  side, 
having  jumped  the  river  easily  on  its  way.  Then  all 
Sunday,  Sunday  night,  and  Monday  morning,  on  both 
sides  of  this  strip,  it  burned  outward  until  it  was  con- 
trolled or  found  nothing  else  to  consume. 

The  statistics  of  that  tragedy  are  appalling.  Two 
hundred  and  fifty  people  lost  their  lives;,  one  hundred 
thousand  were  homeless.  All  that  was  left  of  the  city  was 
not,  in  commercial  value,  worth  one-half  of  that  which 
was  destroyed. 

The  heat  passed  all  common  estimate  and  observation. 
It  was  comparable  only  to  that  of  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
under  a  blow  pipe.  Exposed  safes  were  absolutely  con- 
sumed, but  those  in  brick  vaults,  or  that  dropped  in  places 


THE  SETTLING  OE  THE  WEST 


105 


covered  by  the  debris  of  the  fallen  buildings  were  saved 
with  their  contents.  Iron  pillars  two  feet  square  were 
in  parts  absolutely  burned  up*,  no  residue  remaining. 

Thieves  and  cut-throats  flocked  from  everywhere,  like 
vultures  to  their  prey,  and  added  to  the  distress  of  the 
people.  Crime  seemed  threatening  what  remained  from 
the  ravages  of  the  fire,  until  the  military  boys  from  the 
State  University  and  Gen.  Sheridan's  regular  troops  came 
and  restored  order. 

Thanks  to  the  sympathy  of  the  entire  world,  to  the 
courage  and  ability  of  its  inhabitants,  and  to  the  confi- 
dence   of    financial    men    everywhere,    wealth    unlimited 

*Lieut.  Governor  Wm.  Bross,  in  "History  of  Chicago,"  page 
91:  "In  places  it  would  strike  great  iron  columns  nearly  two 
feet  square  and  for  four  or  five  feet,  perhaps  more,  the  iron 
would   be   burned   up.    No   residuum   being  left." 


The  Eifth   Court  House 
Loaned  by  Chicago  Historical  Society 


io6 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


was  offered  for  reconstruction.  The  city  soon  arose 
better,  newer,  and  more  substantial.  Her  symbol  and  seal 
should  be  the  Phoenix. 

The  Fifth  Court  House 
Of  this,  I  have  little  to  say.  During  its  reign  I  spent 
much  of  my  time  west  of  the  Mississippi.  It  was  occu- 
pied by  1885,  and  I  think  was  the  beauty  of  the  series.  I 
saw  it  in  its  pride,  when  the  dream-city  of  the  Columbian 
World's  Fair  transformed  Jackson  Park  into  a  realm  of 
beauty,  wealth,  and  education.  But  like  many  other 
beautiful  things  it  was  frail;  its  foundation  gave  way,  it 
was  condemned,  and  in  1905  the  wrecking  of  its  walls 
commenced. 

The  Sixth  Court  House 

The  sixth  and  present  court  house  and  city  hall  was 
occupied  in   191 1.     The  combined  cost  was  ten  million 


The  Sixth   Court  House 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  107 

dollars.  It  is  the  largest,  the  best  arranged,  and  the  most 
substantial  structure  from  which  the  city  was  ever  gov- 
erned. 

And  what  a  city !  It  is  stated  that  some  single  firms 
have  thirteen  thousand  employees.  Such  a  firm,  with 
its  laborers,  their  families,  and  attendants,  if  segregated, 
would  alone  make  a  city  of  more  than  fifty  thousand 
people.  There  are  single  office  buildings  whose  tenantry, 
with  their  dependents,  would,  thus  segregated,  make 
towns  of  more  than  five  thousand  inhabitants. 

Chicago  is  extremely  cosmopolitan.  I  always  knew 
that,  but  never  fully  realized  it  until  the  Fourth  Liberty 
Loan  parade.  Then,  for  hours,  I  saw  its  foreign  sec- 
tions pass.  Each  nationality  marched  by  itself  headed 
by  more  or  less  of  its  marchers,  who  displayed  their 
national  costumes  and  expressed  their  peculiar  character- 
istics. There  passed  me  that  day  costumes  I  never  be- 
for  had  seen  in  common  life,  on  the  stage,  or  in  pictures. 
I  heard  languages  utterly  strange,  and  saw  banners  show- 
ing nationalities  which  I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  find 
on  a  map.  There  are  said  to  be  forty-three  nationalities 
inhabiting  the  city  in  large  numbers,  and  they  all  seemed 
to  be  out  in  full  force  to  attest  their  devotion  to  this 
land  of  their  adoption  and  to  pledge  their  support  in  the 
war  it  was  carrying  on. 

Let  me  recapitulate  the  manner  in  which  the  census 
kept  up  with  our  city  buildings,  all  during  my  lifetime, 
four  years  alone  excepted.  In  round  numbers :  No.  1 
took  possession  of  a  town  of  four  thousand  people  in 
1836;  No.  2  thirty  thousand  in  1853;  No.  3,  one  hundred 
thousand  in  1859;  No.  4,  three  hundred  thousand  in 
1870;  No.  5,  eight  hundred  thousand  in  1885;  No.  6,  two 


108  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

million  one  hundred  thousand  in  191 1,  and  the  end  is  not 
yet.  The  last  building  has  already  seen  over  half  a  million 
added  to  the  population  of  the  city,  and  how  many  more 
it  will  turn  over  to  its  successor  no  one  can  tell. 

Optimistic  boomers  have  already  formed  a  "Chicago 
Plan"  which,  if  carried  out,  will  make  the  present  look 
like  a  pigmy  beside  a  future  giant.  This  plan  contem- 
plates a  great  civic  center,  supposedly  at  the  junction  of 
La  Salle  and  Congress  Streets.  Here  all  public  buildings 
are  to  be  assembled,  constructed  artistically  in  design, 
magnificent  in  detail  and  gigantic  in  size.  From  this 
center,  broad  avenues  are  to  diverge  diagonally,  as  in  our 
capital  at  Washington,  making  communications  every- 
where rapid  and  pleasant.  On  the  lake  a  beautiful,  broad 
boulevard,  built  outside  the  railroad  tracks,  would  connect 
Grant  and  Jackson  Parks,  and  a  magnificent  yacht  and 
boating  lagoon  would  be  constructed  between  the  same 
two  points  by  making  a  series  of  islands  out  in  the  lake. 
Above  the  river,  another  yachting  course  would  be  ex- 
tended north  by  the  same  means,  perhaps  to  connect  at 
Wilmette. 

Can  this  be  done?  Stupendous  as  it  may  seem,  it  is 
only  one  more  of  the  supposedly  impossible  things  that 
the  city  has  met  and  conquered.  Has  it  not  already  been 
commenced?  Is  not  the  widening  of  Twelfth  Street  and 
Michigan  Boulevard  one  step  of  the  plan?  And  is  it  not 
already  understood  that  whatever  is  done  in  the  future 
in  the  way  of  changes  shall  be  further  steps  in  the  same 
direction  ? 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  109 

Can  it  be  done  ?  I  believe  it  will  be  done,  and  I  would 
give  some  years  of  the  end  of  my  life  to  be  permitted,  a 
half  century  from  now,  to  return  for  twenty-four  hours 
to  see  what  shall  have  been  accomplished. 

I  have  dwelt  thus  long  in  my  description  of  Chicago, 
not  because  it  is  the  only  city  of  the  West  of  phenomenal 
growth,  but  for  the  reason  that  its  story  is  typical  of  what 
other  cities  have  done,  and  because  I  have  been  more 
closely  identified  with  it  than  with  any  other.  St.  Louis, 
since  I  was  born,  has  grown  from  a  place  of  sixteen 
thousand  to  a  city  of  nearly  seven  hundred  thousand. 
Milwaukee,  when  I  was  first  there,  contained  about  twen- 
ty thousand  people ;  now  it  has  nearly  four  hundred 
thousand.  Had  I  gone  to  what  is  now  Minneapolis  when 
I  crossed  the  Mississippi  in  1857,  I  could  still  have  found 
odd  pieces  of  government  land  which  are  now  inside  that 
city  of  over  three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  The  site 
of  the  great  dam  itself,  the  center  of  its  power  and  wealth, 
was  not  pre-empted  until  1848,  and  the  significant  sum 
of  one  hundred  and  seventy-two  dollars  and  twelve  cents, 
silver,  was  paid  for  the  millions  of  dollars  of  value  there 
today.  St.  Paul,  owing  to  its  proximity  to  Fort  Snelling, 
was  inhabited  earlier.  It  was  first  settled  by  outcasts 
and  undesirables  from  the  fort,  and  was  called  "Pigs 
Eye"  from  the  characteristic  of  one  of  its  chief  sinners. 
Denver,  Colorado,  I  found  in  1859,  was  a  little  village  of 
board  shacks  containing  a  few  hundred  residents ;  now 
it  has  more  than  two  hundred  thousand  people.  Omaha, 
Nebraska,  when  I  first  passed  through  it,  could  hardly  be 
called  a  town ;  now  it  has  more  than  one  hundred  and 
thirty-four  thousand  inhabitants. 


no  ONE  MAN'S  -LIFETIME 

There  is  a  circle  of  towns  and  small  cities,  commenc- 
ing west  of  Omaha  and  following  the  line  of  the  Union 
Pacific  to  Denver,  continuing  along  the  foothills  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  from  Cheyenne  south  to  Trinidad,  and 
thence  north-east  and  east  away  back  into  Kansas — a 
circle  of  live,  growing,  wide-awake,  western  communities, 
ranging  from  villages  up  to  good  sized  cities.  In  any  of 
these  places,  Denver  and  Boulder  alone  excepted,  had  I 
been  a  year  or  two  older  I  could  have  taken  the  present 
site  for  a  homestead  or  pre-emption,  when  I  passed 
through  or  camped  upon  it  in  1859  or  i860. 

I  mention  these  towns  and  cities  not  because  they  are 
exceptional,  but  because  they  represent  nearly  all  of  such 
communities  now  flourishing  west  of  the  Missouri  River 
that  were,  when  I  was  a  man  nearly  grown,  far  distant 
from  a  white  settlement  of  any  kind,  and  inhabited  by 
no  one,  not  even  a  wandering  red  man. 

Great  as  was  the  growth  of  the  cities  of  the  West, 
the  country  was  not  far  behind.  In  1818  congress  per- 
mitted Illinois  to  become  a  state,  provided  it  had  forty 
thousand  people.  The  census  takers  found  them,  but  in 
getting  them  they  were  said  to  have  counted  every 
emigrant  who  passed  through  their  respective  districts. 
Therefore,  if  some  settler  bound  for  Iowa  or  Minnesota 
was  caught  by  six  census  men,  he  counted  just  six  times 
as  heavily  as  one  actual  resident  of  the  state.  Now, 
Illinois  does  not  have  to  pad  or  multiply  its  enumeration 
to  show  six  million  inhabitants.  During  my  lifetime 
Wisconsin  has  grown  from  thirty  thousand  to  nearly  two 
million  five  hundred  thousand.  Iowa  has  increased  from 
forty-three   thousand  to  over  two  million   two  hundred 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  in 

thousand;  Indiana  from  six  hundred  eighty  thousand  to 
two  million  seven  hundred  thousand ;  Colorado  from  no 
census  to  one  million  one  hundred  thousand ;  Kansas 
from  no  census  to  one  million  seven  hundred  thousand. 
California  from  no  census  to  two  million  four  hundred 
thousand.  In  this  ratio  the  wonderful  story  goes  on  all 
over  the  West. 


ii2  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  VII 
RAILROAD  BUILDING  AND  LAND-GRABBING 

In  1854,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  I  became  a  "railroad 
man."  I  commenced  running  upon  the  Chicago  and  Mil- 
waukee railroad  as  "water  boy,"  and  performed  that  duty 
on  the  first  trains  that  made  the  through  trips  between  the 
two  cities.  Then  there  were  three  villages  between  the 
two  places :  Waukegan,  Kenosha,  and  Racine.  Farm 
residences  were  few  and  far  between.  Now  for  nearly 
one-half  of  the  distance  there  is  one  continuous  city, 
though  under  some  twenty-five  different  names  and  cor- 
porations. m 

There  were  orginally  only  two  trains  a  day  upon  the 
road,  one  starting  from  each  terminal  and  returning  at 
night.  They  were  drawn  by  locomotives  of  the  same  type 
as  the  "Pioneer,"  the  first  engine  on  the  Galena  &  Chicago 
Railroad.  These  engines  seemed  to  run  largely  to  smoke 
stacks  and  whistles,  but  they  were  so  weak  in  steam 
making  power  that  it  was  said  when  the  whistle  was 
blown  the  train  had  to  be  stopped.  This  may  be  an  exag- 
geration, but  I  do  know  that  sometimes  we  were  halted 
between  stations  for  the  fireman  to  get  up  sufficient  steam 
to  go  on.  Whether  this  stoppage  was  due  to  an  excessive 
use  of  the  whistle  or  to  some  other  cause,  I  refuse  to  say. 

A  baggage  car  and  two — or  at  most  three — small 
passenger  cars  made  up  our  train,  and  were  ample  for  the 
traffic.  Postal  cars  and  express  cars  or  sleeping  cars  were 
not  then  known  or  wanted.  The  coaches  were  coupled 
freely  and  widely,  the  drawbars  protruded  well  from  the 
platform  and  were  connected  to  the  next  car  either  by 
three  short  links  or  one  long  one.     When  the  train  was 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  113 

stretched  out  the  open  space  between  the  platforms  was 
so  wide  and  so  shifting  that  passing  from  one  car  to 
another  was  an  acrobatic  feat  not  always  safe.  To  this 
I  can  testify,  for  one  day  I  dropped  down  between  two 
of  the  platforms  and  only  a  fortunate  catch  at  a  brake 
rod  and  the  railing  prevented  my  falling  upon  the  rails 
beneath  and  ending  my  story  there. 

The  Galena  &  Chicago  and  the  Milwaukee  &  Chicago 
Railways  were  the  only  ones  then  in  operation  that  now 
constitute  part  of  the  Chicago  &  Northwestern  system. 
There  were  no  suburban  trains,  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  combined  outgoing  and  incoming  passengers  on  the 
two  roads  would  amount  to  two  hundred  people  daily. 
Today  seventy-five  thousand  passengers,  carried  by  three 
hundred  and  ten  trains,  arrive  and  leave  at  their  station 
on  Madison  Street  each  twenty-four  hours. 

Milwaukee  having  secured  a  railroad  to  the  south, 
now  determined  to  make  an  outlet  to  the  northwest.  It 
commenced  building  the  Milwaukee  and  La  Crosse  Road 
in  1855,  and  I  secured  the  train  rights  on  it  for  myself. 

No  change  in  anything  I  can  think  of  can  be  found 
greater  than  in  the  method,  or  lack  of  method,  of  our 
railroading  then,  and  the  machine-like  precision  with 
which  it  is  conducted  now.  At  that  time  our  "railroad 
men"  necessarily  had  to  come  from  all  trades  and  profes- 
sions except  railroading,  which  occupation  was  then  in  its 
infancy.  Nearly  every  man  belonging  to  the  train  car- 
ried his  drinking  flask,  which  he  freely  patronized  and 
passed  to  those  who  had  none,  not  omitting  any  officials 
of  the  road  who  might  be  present.  Of  course,  in  order  to 
be  a  man  among  men  I  also  carried  mine.  At  New 
Year's  all  hands  on  the  train  swore  off  drinking  forever. 


ii4  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

That  "forever"  lasted  about  thirty  days,  when  their  flasks 
all  reappeared,  and  I  did  some  thinking.  That  drinking 
was  a  bad  habit,  all  had  admitted  by  trying  to  stop ;  that 
it  was  their  master,  was  proved  by  their  commencing 
again.  That  was  demonstration  enough  for  me;  I  threw 
my  flask  away. 

The  La  Crosse  Road  on  which  I  was  running  made 
its  way  through  a  beautiful  land  of  mingled  groves  and 
prairies  west  of  Milwaukee.  It  was  sparsely  settled  by 
backwoodsmen  who  came  here  because  their  last  home 
had  been  so  thickly  settled  that  neighbors  were  not  more 
than  four  or  five  miles  apart,  and  such  proximity  made 
it  entirely  too  crowded  for  them.  A  very  large  propor- 
tion of  these  people  had  never  seen  a  train  of  cars  be- 
fore we  appeared,  a  startling  apparition  to  them. 

Lack  of  funds  compelled  the  company  to  purchase  and 
use  a  very  light  rail,  the  ends  of  which  were  laid  loosely 
in  old  fashioned  "chairs,"  and  as  the  ties  were  laid  in 
loose,  sandy  loam,  without  ballast,  it  was  not  strange  that 
some  cars  occasionally  "jumped  the  track,"  and  bumped 
along  over  the  ties  until  stopped.  As  our  time  was  slow 
and  the  cars  were  light,  little  damage  was  usually  done. 
We  had  no  connections  to  make,  and  the  schedule  was 
liberal.  So,  getting  necessary  tools — always  carried  for 
such  emergency — out  of  the  baggage  car  and  off  the  en- 
gine, we  would  get  to  work  with  the  aid  of  willing  pas- 
sengers, and  jack  the  cars  up  and  pry  them  into  place. 
Little  harm  would  generally  happen  on  these  occasions, 
save,  perhaps,  being  late  for  supper  at  the  home  end  of 
the  run.  Railroad  travel  in  this  new  West,  sometimes 
approximated  old  stage  service,  where,  it  was  said,  in 
rainy  weather  the  stage  coach  passengers  paid  "ten  cents 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  115 

a  mile  for  the  privilege  of  walking  and  carrying  a  rail  to 
pry  the  stage  out  of  the  mud." 

The  train  boy  of  those  times,  whose  place  I  tried  to 
fill,  was  called  the  water  boy.  He  supplied  the  passengers 
with  ice  water  when  they  wanted  it,  and  in  return  was 
permitted  to  sell  what  he  could  and  would.  Usually  the 
right  was  individual,  and  he  was  a  little  business  man,  not 
an  employee.  He  sold  his  own  goods,  pocketed  the  dif- 
ferences between  selling  proceeds  and  cost  price,  and 
accounted  to  no  man  therefor.  Trade  was  good  with  the 
people  who  were  taking  their  first  ride  on  the  cars,  and 
many  a  time  I  have  sold  some  young  fellow  the  first 
peaches  and  bananas  he  and  his  girl  ever  ate.  Often  the 
water  boy's  job  was,  financially,  the  best  one  on  the  train. 
I  know  mine  was,  and  as  I  had  few  expenses  I  was  rap- 
idly becoming  the  moneyed  man  of  our  gang.  But 
unfortunately  in  the  fall  of  1856  sickness  compelled  me  to 
tell  the  boys  "Good-bye"  and  leave  the  road. 

I  next  found  myself  in  the  land-rush  for  north  central 
Iowa  in  the  spring  of  1857,  before  there  was  any  bridge 
across  the  Mississippi  at  any  point.  The  "opening,"  or 
sale  of  public  land,  was  at  Osage,  and,  I  think,  was  the 
last  one  held  under  the  old  pre-emption  laws.  Land  grab- 
bers with  their  gold — the  only  money  Uncle  Sam  would 
recognize  at  the  land  office — had  filled  the  hotels  and 
houses  of  the  town  to  overflowing,  and  settlers  with  their 
teams  and  wagons  were  camped  everywhere  through  the 
town.  Under  the  law,  settlers  upon  land  had  the  first 
right  to  buy  it  at  the  government  price  of  $1.25  per  acre; 
this  chance  had  been  given  them  before  the  opening  day, 
but  money  was  scarce  and  could  be  obtained  only  at 
exorbitant  rates.  Some  few  settlers  had  borrowed  at  forty 


n6  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

per  cent  per  annum,  but  the  larger  part  of  their  land  was 
still  not  paid  for,  and  the  speculators  there  gathered  ex- 
pected to  buy  the  improved  holdings  at  government  rates. 
The  pioneers,  however,  did  not  propose  to  be  sold  out  of 
the  homes  they  had  worked  so  hard  to  make,  if  they  could 
help  it. 

The  hour  of  opening  arrived.  Jubilantly  the  specu- 
lators with  their  gold  went  to  the  land  office  to  make  their 
entries,  but  they  found  the  settlers  in  possession  of  the 
doors  and  they  could  not  get  in.  And  what  a  shabby- 
looking  lot  of  men  these  settlers  were  at  first  sight :  the 
most  of  them  were  barefooted — they  called  themselves 
"the  barefoot  brigade" ;  many  were  without  hats  or  caps, 
nearly  all  in  clothes  showing  long  service,  and  some  of 
these  garments  bearing  many  signs  of  near-dissolution. 
But  despite  their  apparel,  which  the  lack  of  money  had 
compelled  them  to  wear,  they  were  not  bums  or  hoboes ; 
they  were  a  brave,  hardy,  dependable  lot  of  men,  the  bone 
and  sinew  of  the  Western  border. 

The  "Land  Grabbers"  appealed  to  the  officials  of  the 
land  office  to  get  access  to  the  doors,  but  were  told  in  reply 
that  "the  books  of  the  office  are  all  open  to  receive  land 
entries  whenever  you  see  fit  to  come  for  them." 

"But  we  can't  get  in,"  was  the  reply. 

"We  cannot  help  that,"  said  the  officials.  "How  or 
when  you  get  here  is  no  part  of  our  jurisdiction." 

The  land-buyers  then  appealed  to  the  civil  officers  of 
the  town,  but  were  told,  "We  cannot  see  any  disturbance 
on  the  street  for  us  to  interfere." 

"But  we  want  those  men  moved  out  of  our  way  so  we 
can  get  into  the  land  office." 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  117 

"If  that  is  what  you  want,"  said  the  mayor,  ''let  me 
tell  you  something.  I  know  some  of  those  men,  and  there 
are  not  enough  inhabitants  in  the  county  to  do  your  job. 
If  you  want  them  moved,  you  will  have  to  do  it  your- 
selves." 

Thus  the  issue  was  joined.  It  was  a  fight  or  a  com- 
promise :  the  moneyed  men  chose  the  latter  and  sent  a 
delegation  to  open  negotiations.  "What  do  you  settlers 
want,  any  way?" 

"We  want,"  was  answered,  "to  locate  our  own  homes 
and  one  quarter  section  besides." 

"You  have  those  rights  already,"  said  the  buyers. 
"You  have  possession  of  the  doors,  why  don't  you  go 
ahead  and  locate  your  selections  ?" 

"We  have  no  money,"  replied  the  settlers.  "You  are 
business  men  enough  to  understand  that  a  good  quarter 
section  that  we  could  select  near  settlements,  is  a  much 
better  buy  at  $2.50  per  acre  than  anything  you,  not  know- 
ing the  country,  can  catch  at  $1.25.  So  we  want  to  sell 
you  our  extra  quarter  sections  at  the  first  named  figure." 

"We  agree  to  that,"  assented  the  buyers.  "We  will 
buy  your  extra  selections  at  the  price  you  name,  $2.50  per 
acre."  j 

"But,"  continued  the  pioneers,  "we  have  no  money  to 
enter  either  piece.  We  want  you  to  advance  each  of  us 
four  hundred  dollars  to  buy  both  and  after  we  get  them, 
we  will  deed  you  one." 

"Nonsense!"  objected  the  speculators.  "That  is  neither 
law  nor  business ;  legally  you  cannot  sell  what  you  do  not 
own,  and  it  is  not  business  to  pay  for  land  until  a  deed  is 
either  delivered  or  placed  in  escrow." 


n8  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  eye  of  the  leader  of  the  settlers'  delegation 
snapped  and  his  jaw  tightened  as  he  replied,  "We  know 
that  the  proceeding  is  neither  law  nor  business ;  it  is 
more  than  either,  it  is  a  necessity  if  you  buy  any  land  at 
this  sale."  Then  he  added  in  a  less  belligerent  tone,  "I 
realize  we  are  an  almighty  tough-looking  lot,  but  if  you 
are  afraid  we  will  not  do  the  square  thing  in  the  deal,  I 
think  you  will  find  that  every  bank  in  town  and  also  the 
land  office  itself  will  vouch  for  us.  As  the  banks  and 
land  office  gladly  made  sufficient  guaranty,  agreements 
were  made  and  carried  on  the  terms  proposed.  This  de- 
sirable arrangement  having  been  effected,  the  settlers  went 
home  happy  with  paid-for  deeds  to  their  homes  in  their 
pockets,  and  left  the  speculators  to  buy  and  tie  up  from 
settlement  the  lands  of  about  twelve  counties. 

Such  was  a  "Land  Opening"  under  the  old  pre-emp- 
tion law,  when  the  Government  sold  its  land  to  any  specu- 
lator who  would  buy  it  at  one  dollar  and  a  quarter  an 
acre.  A  very  few  years  later  the  "Homestead  Law"  was 
passed,  and  no  land  could  be  bought  at  any  price,  but 
farms  were  given  free  to  any  citizen  who  would  live  on 
them.  Under  that  law,  a  land  opening  of  some  Indian 
reservation,  compared  with  the  other  just  described,  was 
like  a  circus  to  a  prayer  meeting.  I  attended  one  such 
in  1892,  a  full  generation  later  than  that  of  Osage. 

The  Sisseton  Sioux  reservation  in  South  Dakota  was 
to  be  opened  for  settlement,  not  purchases,  at  twelve 
o'clock  noon,  the  second  Saturday  in  April,  1892,  and  no 
person  was  permitted  to  be  on  the  land  before  that  hour. 
There  were  two  methods  prescribed  for  acquiring  title  at 
this  opening:  one  was  by  taking  possession  of  the  land 
and  making  improvements  thereon ;  the  other,  by  handing 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  119 

the  description  of  the  land  you  wanted,  with  your  name 
and  two  dollars  fee,  to  a  clerk  in  the  land  office  at  Water- 
town.  The  man  who  first  settled,  either  by  taking  posses- 
sion or  filing  in  the  land  office,  secured  the  homestead. 

There  were  about  a  thousand  farms  and  about  ten 
thousand  persons  who  wanted  them.  The  country  was 
settled  all  around  the  reservation  and  the  lands  were 
valuable.  A  Louisiana  lottery  was  small  and  insignificant 
compared  to  the  chances  here  presented  for  the  success  of 
a   life   time,   and   excitement   ran   correspondingly   high. 

During  the  week  preceding  the  sale,  the  city  filled  up 
with  the  most  heterogeneous  collection  of  persons  pos- 
sible. Lawyers  without  clients,  doctors  without  patients, 
merchants  without  stores,  schoolteachers  without  schools ; 
and  the  landless  of  all  former  nationalities  and  degrees, 
from  all  parts  of  the  Union,  came  here  to  establish  new, 
or  re-establish  old,  homes. 

Old  soldiers  were  given  the  advantage  over  the  others 
of  filing  by  attorney,  and  that  was  what  brought  me  into 
the  scrimmage.  I  was  the  attorney  for  nearly  sixty  of  my 
comrades  who  wanted  homesteads.  I  could  not  take  pos- 
session of  the  land  for  these  comrades — I  was  limited  in 
my  choice  of  method :  I  must  file  for  them  in  the  land 
office.  The  doors  were  to  be  opened  on  Saturday  at  noon, 
and  feeling  that  I  must  be  near  the  head  of  the  line,  Tues- 
day at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  roused  myself  and 
went  to  the  land  office.  I  found  eight  men  ahead  of  me, 
but  that  was  not  bad ;  I  was  number  nine  in  the  line, 
and  maintained  it  through  night  and  day,  rain,  cold,  and 
snow,  until  the  stated  hour  Saturday  at  twelve  o'clock, 
when  there  were  more  than  a  thousand  men  behind  me. 


120  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

At  that  hour,  those  who  wanted  to  get  their  homes  by 
occupation  were  stationed  all  around  the  reservation,  the 
lines  of  which  had  been  marked  and  guarded  by  sentinels 
to  prevent  any  from  entering  before  the  appointed  time. 
To  comply  with  the  law,  these  seekers  must  be  first  on  the 
land  that  they  wanted  and  must  be  first  to  commence  im- 
provements. 

The  "improvements"  usually  favored  consisted  of  dig- 
ging a  well  or  a  cellar.  If  one  first  placed  his  feet  on  the 
ground  of  his  choice  and  threw  one  spade  of  earth  from 
his  proposed  well  or  cellar,  he  had  commenced  improve- 
ments and  secured  the  land,  unless  someone  in  the  land 
office  had  filed  on  the  same  piece  before  he  had  made 
such  "settlement." 

As  the  hour  approached  the  most  intense  excitement 
reigned  along  the  long  line  of  those  who  meant  to  make 
filings  at  the  land  office.  Among  those  who  hoped  to 
gain  their  homes  by  occupation  every  nerve  was  strained 
throughout  the  ranks  of  the  men  and  women,  on  horse- 
back, on  foot,  in  carriages  and  wagons ;  any  and  every 
means  of  locomotion  that  could  be  used  for  speed  were 
lined  up  for  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  around  the 
reservation.  The  hour  came :  the  land  office  threw  open 
its  doors,  the  sentinels  on  the  waiting  line  around  the 
reservation  fired  their  guns  as  a  signal,  and  the  mad  rush 
then  began.  To  repeat  all  the  tales  of  the  struggle,  comic 
and  pathetic,  would  require  volumes ;  one  of  them  may 
only  partially  picture  a  little  of  the  scene. 

A  young  man  and  his  sister  were  mounted,  waiting  for 
the  signal.  Both  were  excited  and  anxious,  for  they  knew 
where  they  wanted  to  locate.  "Now,  Betty,"  cautioned 
the  man,  "be  sure  to  follow  me,  and  keep  up  with  me  if 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  121 

you  can,  for  1  have  the  spade  to  commence  our  improve- 
ments and  I  am  going  to  ride  on  a  dead  run."  The  gun  was 
fired ;  the  rush  was  on.  They  both  were  away  at  their 
utmost  speed,  but  were  separated  in  the  mixup.  When 
the  man  reached  the  chosen  place  he  found  that  his  sister 
had  out-run  him  and,  having  no  spade,  was  digging  her 
cellar  like  a  woodchuck  or  gopher — with  her  hands  and 
feet.  If  the  girl  did  not  secure  her  home  she  certainly 
deserved  it.  Luck  favored  me  in  my  filings.  Out  of  the 
sixty  which  I  made  I  caught  about  twenty-five  quarter 
sections  on  which  my  comrades  made  homes,  and  some  of 
whom  became  wealthy. 

It  is  the  common  impression  that  land  early  purchased 
of  the  Government  at  the  low  price  of  a  dollar  and  a 
quarter  an  acre  made  their  buyers  wealthy.  Whatever  it 
may  have  done  at  other  times  and  other  openings,  I  am  not 
discussing,  but  the  lands  at  the  Osage  sale  in  1857  proved 
a  regular  "Old  Man  of  the  Sea"  upon  the  backs  of  their 
unlucky  purchasers.  It  was  more  than  thirty  years— a 
full  generation — before  they  were  saleable.  The  reason 
was  apparent :  western  Iowa  and  Minnesota  were  still 
open  for  settlers ;  the  Homestead  Act  soon  passed,  and 
while  "Uncle  Sam  was  rich  enough  to  give  us  all  a  farm" 
what  was  the  use  of  going  to  north  central  Iowa  and  buy- 
ing one? 

There  were  enough  residents  in  the  counties,  subject  to 
this  sale,  to  organize  civil  governments  and  hold  the 
offices,  and  the  first  duty  of  county  officers  was  to  see  that 
non-resident  landholders  paid  taxes — a  duty  that  was 
properly  attended  to.  I  know  whereof  I  am  writing.  My 
partner  and  I  had  on  our  books,  twenty  years  after  this 
opening,  thousands  of  acres  of  these  lands  offered,  without 


122  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

takers,  for  sale  at  five  dollars  per  acre.  The  cost  of  that 
land,  counting  investment,  taxes  and  interest  throughout 
all  these  years,  must  have  been  more  than  twice  that  sum. 
Many  of  these  lands  were  subsequently  sold  for  taxes  and 
their  owners  never  realized  anything  for  their  invest- 
ment. 

About  1870  a  peculiar  condition  prevailed  in  the  west- 
ern part  of  one  county.  Many  entries  had  been  made 
there  by  Southern  people ;  then  the  war  came  on,  fol- 
lowed by  the  reconstruction  period  in  the  South,  when  our 
Southern  brothers  had  all  they  could  do  to  maintain  and 
keep  up  their  plantations  without  bothering  with  any 
wild-cat  lands  in  Iowa.  There  were  accumulated  on  these 
lands,  ten  years  of  unpaid  taxes.  As  no  one  would  buy 
them  for  the  amount  due,  it  was  decided  that  they  should 
be  sold  for  whatever  they  would  bring.  This  was  done. 
The  sale  dragged ;  nobody  wanted  to  bid,  and  many  pieces 
sold  below  fifty  dollars  for  the  whole  quarter  section.  To 
be  sure  it  was  only  a  tax  title,  but  under  the  circumstances, 
it  was  a  title  which  has  held  for  nearly  half  a  century — 
will  hold  for  ten  centuries  longer — and  one  which  it  would 
cost  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred  dollars  per  acre 
to  dispossess  today.  From  fifty  dollars  a  quarter  section 
to  two  hundred  dollars  an  acre  is  a  respectable  profit. 
These  purchasers  made  money. 

Many  of  the  quarter  sections  sold  at  Osage  were  so 
wet  or  broken  that  good  lands  could  be  bought  at  much 
less  than  the  expense  of  draining  or  otherwise  reclaiming 
them.  I  remember  one  case  of  a  non-resident  who  had 
paid  taxes  for  more  than  ten  years  on  a  piece  of  land,  and 
finally  came  out  to  see  it.  He  employed  the  country  sur- 
veyor, and  with  his  help   found  the  first  corner  of  the 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  123 

quarter  section.  The  surveyor  folded  his  compass  and 
started  west  to  find  the  next  corner,  when  the  Easterner 
stopped  him  and  said,  "You  say  this  is  a  corner  of  my 
land."    "Yes,"  replied  the  surveyor. 

"Now,  which  is  my  land?    Point  it  out,  please." 

The  surveyor,  pointing  west  said,  "Your  north  line 
runs  one-half  mile  in  this  direction;"  then  pointing  south, 
"a  half-mile  there.  It  is  a  half-mile  square  of  land  located 
in  here,"  waving  his  hand  between  the  two  points  and 
indicating  a  shaky,  wild-grass  slough,  at  that  time  worth- 
less for  any  purpose  whatever. 

"Well  say,  what  is  that  hole  in  the  ground  there?" 
asked  the  land  owner. 

"That  is  a  craw-fish  hole,"  replied  the  surveyor. 
"Do  you  think  the  gentleman  lives  there?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  surveyor.  "Don't  you  see  the  fresh  dirt 
he  threw  out  last  night?" 

The  land  owner  thoughtfully  unbuttoned  his  coat,  took 
from  his  pocket  a  warranty  deed  for  the  land,  carefully 
wrapped  it  around  the  end  of  his  cane,  and  pushed  it  well 
home  into  the  craw-fish's  residence,  then  said,  "There,  Mr. 
Craw-fish,  you  have  possession  of  this  land.  Blame  you, 
take  the  title !" 

It  was  not  until  about  1890  that  holding  lands  in  that 
part  of  Iowa  was  a  good  speculation :  at  that  time  came  a 
steady  rise  lasting  for  twenty  years ;  lands  purchased  at 
from  six  to  twenty  dollars  an  acre  in  1890,  often  sold  for 
from  sixty  dollars  to  two  hundred  dollars  an  acre  in  19 10. 


124  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  VIII 
PIONEER  LIFE 

The  interval  between  the  years  1857  and  1890 — a 
third  of  a  century,  a  full  generation — were  certainly 
"back  woods,"  or,  if  you  prefer,  "back  prairie,"  times 
of  primitive  pioneer  life  in  northern  Iowa.  It  is  hard  for 
one  who  has  not  experienced  it  to  realize  the  conditions 
which  then  and  there  surrounded  the  settlers.  Take  our 
party  for  instance.  We  located  some  forty  miles  west  of 
the  land  office  in  Osage,  and  after  we  had  left  Mitchell 
on  the  Cedar  River,  about  three  miles  on  our  way,  we 
passed  but  two  houses  on  all  the  long  journey— one  of 
them  vacant.  At  the  end  of  our  drive,  we  found  the 
little  settlement  that  was  our  objective  with  about  half 
a  dozen  houses  and  possessed  of  the  ambitious  design  to 
capture  the  county  seat.  This  design  they  accomplished 
and  maintained  until  another  part  of  the  county  located  a 
few  more  citizens,  when  the  honor  was  lost  never  to 
return. 

We  found  the  people  here  regaining  heart  and  hope 
from  the  effects  of  perhaps  the  hardest  winter  that  sec- 
tion ever  knew.  The  snow  came  early  and  in  great  abund- 
ance. To  listen  to  the  tales  told  us  of  the  depths  of  the 
drifts,  one  would  suppose  that  some  lively  liar  had  been 
teaching  school  in  that  vicinity,  but  investigation  proved 
that  it  was  harder  to  invent  lies  than  to  relate  facts  that 
were  so  much  stranger  than  fiction.  They  told  of  going 
out  to  the  meadow  to  get  hay  for  their  teams,  and  having 
to  dig  down  to  reach  the  top  of  their  stacks.  This  was 
doubtless  true  in  cases.  Of  their  having  to  dig  tunnels 
into  their  houses.     This  also  certainly  was  sometimes  a 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  125 

fact.  Harder  yet  for  a  stranger  to  believe,  but  most  indis- 
putable of  all ;  at  times  they  were  compelled  to  stretch  a 
line  from  the  back  door  of  the  house  to  the  stable  for 
fear  of  getting  lost  during  a  storm  while  going  from  one 
to  the  other.  This  was  true,  not  only  of  the  winter  in 
question,  but  true  for  many  winters  thereafter.  So  long 
as  the  snow-filled  blizzards  could  sweep  for  miles  without 
finding  a  house,  a  stable,  or  grove,  or  cornfield,  around 
which  and  in  which  the  snow  could  find  rest,  it  rushed 
on,  a  blinding,  swirling  mass  until  it  pounced  upon  some 
advanced  settler's  home  and  buried  it.  If  the  pioneer 
himself  was  caught  outside  in  the  blinding,  suffocating 
swirl,  he  soon  lost  all  sense  of  direction,  and  might  be- 
come bewildered  and  suffocated,  helpless  in  his  own  door 
yard. 

But  the  deep  snow  was  not  the  climax  of  the  tragedy 
of  the  winter  1856- 1857.  About  the  middle  of  the  winter 
came  a  warm  spell  and  some  rain,  and  then  it  turned 
fearfully  cold.  A  crust  formed  on  top  of  the  deep  snow 
strong  enough  to  carry  a  man,  but  not  enough  to  support 
any  domestic  animal  heavier  than  a  dog.  This  condition 
continued  during  the  remainder  of  the  winter.  Elk  and 
deer  were  imprisoned  in  the  places  where  the  rains  found 
them,  and  as  the  sharp,  icy  crust  prevented  their  getting 
away,  they  either  starved,  or  were  killed  by  the  wolves, 
the  settlers'  dog,  or  the  settlers  themselves.  That  winter 
practically  exterminated  the  hoof  and  horn  game  from 
northern  Iowa. 

Soon  there  was  danger  that  not  only  the  wild  game 
but  also  the  settlers  and  their  families  would  starve,  for 
no  crops  had  yet  been  raised  in  this  location.  On  the 
Cedar  River,  nearly  forty  miles  away,  was  the  nearest 


126  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

point  where  farming  had  been  done  and  a  mill  erected  to 
grind  grain.  Not  a  team  could  possibly  make  this  trip 
through  the  crusted  snow ;  there  was  only  one  thing  left 
to  do;  the  crust  would  hold  up  the  men,  and  they  must 
hitch  themselves  to  sleds  and  haul  the  flour  or  meal  in, 
or  starve.  They  chose  the  first  alternative,  and  taking 
the  place  of  horses,  hauled  in  the  provisions.  They  also 
did  all  the  other  work  that  their  teams  usually  performed. 
This  was  a  prairie  country,  wood  was  scarce  and  many 
times  a  long  way  off.  Though  most  families  had  not 
provided  a  winter's  supply,  the  home  fires  must  be  kept 
burning.  Again  they  tied  themselves  to  their  sleds  and 
went  to  the  timber,  usually  miles  away,  cut  their  sled 
loads  of  wood  and  returned  to  toast  their  shins  before  a 
blaze  whose  worth  they  fully  realized.  One  man  who 
lived  six  miles  from  the  timber  told  me,  "After  I  had 
gone  to  the  timber,  cut  my  load  and  returned  home — a 
twelve-mile  trip — I  could  sit  and  enjoy  that  fire  as  never 
before  in  my  life.  Before  spring  I  could  do  anything  a 
horse  could  except  whinny  and  eat  hay." 

The  next  summer,  fields  were  broken  up ;  wheat,  corn, 
oats,  and  barley  planted,  and  bountiful  crops  harvested. 
That  fall  a  mill  was  built,  and  the  question  of  provisions 
for  another  winter  was  settled  so  far  as  cereals  were  con- 
cerned. For  sugar,  sorghum  cane  was  planted.  In  each 
settlement  some  enterprising  man  would  put  up  a  sorghum 
mill,  and  press  the  cane  and  boil  down  the  sap  on  "shares." 
Of  course,  one  could  not  frost  cake  with  sorghum,  but 
candy  could  be  made,  and  no  better  fun  existed  than 
plenty  of  girls  and  a  sorghum  candy  pull.  For  coffee, 
carrots  roasted  hard  and  ground  in  the  coffee  mill  strove 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  127 

hard  to  fill  the  demand,  and  old  ladies  tried  to  think  that 
red-root  leaves  gathered  on  the  prairie  at  the  right  time, 
and  properly  cured,  made  fine  tea. 

The  prairie  sod,  turned  over  the  first  year,  was  an 
unequaled  place  to  raise  garden  vegetables.  The  groves 
and  thickets  furnished  plums  and  crab  apples  for  all  who 
would  come  and  get  them.  Thus  was  the  inner  man  sup- 
plied, if  not  bountifully  and  daintily,  at  least  sufficiently, 
and  better  still,  what  one  had  was  free  for  all ;  no  person 
went  hungry  if  there  were  provisions  anywhere  in  the 
neighborhood. 

But  money,  and  things  money  alone  could  buy,  were 
scarce,  almost  absent.  There  were  but  two  sources  of 
money  supply :  first,  taxes  realized  from  non-resident 
land  owners ;  second,  what  sums  the  settlers  brought  into 
the  country  with  them.  We  could  raise  unlimited  crops, 
but  of  what  use  were  they  after  home  wants  were  sup- 
plied ?  It  was  two  hundred  miles  to  McGregor,  the  nearest 
market — eight  days  going  and  eight  days  returning. 

Our  best  cash  crop  was  wheat.  Twenty  bushels  would 
make  as  much  as  the  average  team  could  haul  over  sloughs 
that  were  not  graded,  and  through  rivers  not  bridged. 
This  grain  would  sell  for  forty  cents  a  bushel ;  eight  dol- 
lars compensation  for  the  load  of  wheat,  sixteen  day's 
work  with  team,  sixteen  day's  expense  on  the  road  for  a 
man  and  team,  besides  necessary  breakages  and  inciden- 
tals. The  only  figuring  necessary  for  such  a  market-man 
to  make  after  he  got  home  would  be  to  find  out  how  much 
he  would  have  saved  had  he  thrown  his  wheat  away  be- 
fore he  started. 


128  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  resourceful  pioneer,  however,  would  manage  to 
beat  even,  as  bad  a  proposition  as  this.  He  would  start 
while  grass  was  green,  with  an  ox  team  that  was  expected 
to  forage  for  its  own  rations  and  stable  itself  out  of  doors 
nights ;  he  would,  besides  his  wheat,  put  in  his  wagon  a 
small  sack  of  flour,  some  blankets,  a  little  salt,  and  his 
shot  gun.  By  this  means,  if,  through  the  trip,  the  cattle 
succeeded  in  feeding  and  stabling  themselves,  and  if  the 
man  lived  the  entire  time  on  his  own  cooking  of  pancakes 
and  dudah  gravy,  mingled  with  what  game  he  might  shoot, 
and  if  there  were  no  mishaps  that  ruined  the  grain  or 
called  for  cash  outlay,  the  man  might  return  home  with  a 
dress  for  his  wife,  shoes  for  the  girl,  tobacco  for  the 
father,  tea  for  the  mother,  ever  necessary  powder  and 
shot  for  the  gun,  and  probably  new  experiences  to  relate. 

I  mentioned  an  article  found  on  the  menu  of  this 
market-man  which  was  standard  with  all  during  the  first 
few  years  of  new  settlement,  but  which  became  obsolete 
in  good  families  after  cows  came  to  be  milked  and  pigs 
fed.  "Dudah  gravy"  is  the  luxury  I  refer  to,  and  that 
the  knowledge  of  its  making  may  not  die  out  of  the  land, 
I  here  preserve  the  recipe.  Put  sufficient  water  in  a 
frying  pan,  salt  to  the  taste ;  then  take  a  piece  of  butter 
or  other  fat  and  hold  over  the  frying  pan  carefully,  so 
that  the  shadow  of  the  fat  may  rest  upon  the  water.  Put 
the  butter  away  for  further  use,  thicken  the  water  with 
flour  as  desired.     Serve  hot. 

You  doubtless  notice  in  the  financial  statement  I  have 
given  that  there  was  scant  provision  made  for  any  com- 
forts or  necessities  that  demanded  money  to  procure. 
Principal  among  these  was  clothing.  As  new  clothing  was 
near  the  boundary  of  the  impossible,  the  old  was  utilized 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  129 

to  the  limit  of  its  endurance.  It  is  surprising  how  long 
a  suit  will  last  if  so  used.  Judicious,  or  even  unjudicious, 
patching  will  extend  its  life  so  that  it  may  even  rival  the 
nine  assigned  the  cat.  At  first  it  was  thought  that  patches 
should  correspond  with  the  material  and  color  of  the 
garment,  but  from  lack  of  material  this  idea  was  soon 
abandoned  as  unnecessary  and  as  being  too  much  of  a 
concession  to  eastern  style  and  to  the  backwoods  four 
hundred.  A  white  patch  upon  black  goods,  while  not  sought 
for,  was  permissible ;  and  when  time  came  to  patch  the 
patch,  if  a  brilliant  red  was  handy,  one's  garment  might 
soon  rival  that  ancient  and  unlucky  suit  of  many  colors 
that  Joseph  wore.  Occasionally  in  this  community  might 
unexpectedly  appear  a  person  dressed  in  fine  broadcloth, 
or  rustling  silk,  according  to  the  sex  of  its  wearer.  Im- 
mediately he  or  she  would  be  surrounded  by  sympathizing 
neighbors,  who  knew  only  too  well  the  direful  fact,  that 
these  persons  had  not  achieved  wealth,  but  that  everything 
they  possessed  was  worn  out  except  this  suit.  As  the  say- 
ing went,  "Poverty  had  driven  them  to  their  best."  The 
efYorts  made  to  preserve  this  best  suit  would  be  pathetic 
had  they  not  been  so  amusing. 

When  we  commenced  raising  wheat,  canvas  sacks 
were  necessary.  As  these  were  hard  to  keep  track  of  when 
unlimited  borrowing  and  lending  was  the  rule,  each  owner 
branded  his  own  sacks  indelibly  with  his  name.  Now  two 
grain  sacks  make  a  serviceable  pair  of  pants,  and  two 
more  a  coat,  and  should  a  settler  appear  some  morning 
with  a  brand  new  canvas  suit  bearing  one  neighbor's  name 
branded  on  the  coat  and  another  friend's  initials  stamped 
on  the  pants,  no  one  was  shocked ;  for  it  would  be  a 
mighty  mean  man  who  would  begrudge  a  neighbor  a  sack 


130  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

or  two  when  he  needed  a  suit  of  clothes,  even  though  his 
permission  for  such  reconstruction  had  not  been  asked. 

One  writer  on  the  settlement  of  the  West  says, 
"Wherever  Spaniards  located  they  first  built  a  church; 
the  French,  a  fort ;  Germans,  a  beer  hall ;  Dutchmen,  a 
warehouse;  Englishmen,  a  tavern;  and  Americans,  a 
school  and  a  printing  office."  Our  settlement  was  made 
up  of  people  from  all  corners  of  the  world,  but  if  the 
above  classification  be  true,  it  was  very  strongly  Amer- 
ican ;  for  wherever  on  our  prairies  or  in  our  groves  there 
were  half  a  dozen  children  that  could  be  gathered — natur- 
ally come  by,  or  borrowed  of  far  away  neighbors  for  this 
purpose — a  school  was  there  organized ;  and  wherever 
there  was  even  an  apology  for  a  village,  there  either 
flourished  or  languished  a  newspaper. 

Our  people  may  have  been  of  all  lands  and  of  all 
tongues,  but  they  soon  became  one  in  broad,  generous 
comradeship  and  hospitality.  Should  a  man  at  the  close 
of  spring  work,  or  at  any  other  time,  care  to  hitch  up 
his  team  and  drive  with  his  family  fifteen  or  twenty 
miles  to  a  near  neighbor  for  a  few  days'  visit,  he  was 
always  gladly  welcomed.  Every  one  had  plenty  to  eat, 
such  as  it  was,  and  one  who  could  not  wrap  himself  in  a 
blanket  and  lie  on  the  floor,  or  in  the  hay  in  the  stables, 
either  as  host  or  guest,  was  not  worthy  of  the  western 
friendship  there  bestowed. 

Property  was  so  nearly  in  common  that  what  one  man 
owned  could  be  used  by  all ;  borrowing  and  lending  were 
endless.  Should  one  man  be  the  luckless  owner  of  some 
useful  and  popular  piece  of  farm  machinery,  and  needed 
it  for  his  own  use,  he  might  have  to  trace  its  path  over 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  131 

many  farms  before  he  found  it,  and  then  in  courtesy, 
might  be  compelled  to  wait  until  the  neighbor  was  through 
using  it. 

The  country  was  well  watered  by  beautiful  streams, 
clear  and  sparkling,  running  over  bright  and  pebbly  beds. 
But  one  did  not  always  stop  to  admire  their  beauty  when 
he  considered  there  were  no  bridges,  and  that  he  often 
needed  to  cross  them  at  whatever  stage  of  water  they 
might  be.  It  was  remarkable  what  facility  some  of  our 
people  acquired  in  fording  streams  that  were  seemingly 
impassable.  The  secret  was  in  knowing  how,  and  in 
learning  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  each  ford.  One 
person,  desiring  to  know  the  secrets  of  such  a  crossing, 
called  over  the  stream  to  a  native,  "Say,  how  do  you  drive 
this  ford?"  "Well,"  answered  the  Hoosier — for  such  he 
was — "You  drive  down  that  ar  bank  and  into  the  stream 
sort  a  slaunchwise  until  you  get  f ernint  that  big  boulder ; 
then  you  turn  and  come  kinder  catawampus-like  to  this 
cotton  wood  tree,  and  I  think  you  will  get  through  all 
on  a  squegee."  This  direction  platted  that  ford,  but 
often  when  carelessness  or  error  of  judgment  obtained,  we 
did  not  always  get  across  "on  a  squegee." 

Once,  with  a  rig  containing  my  sister,  another  man's 
sister,  and  myself,  I  attempted  to  cross  a  stream  whose 
depth  I  had  under-estimated.  When  part  way 
across,  the  team  commenced  swimming  and  carried 
the  front  wheels  of  the  wagon  with  them  to  the  further 
shore ;  the  hind  wheels  dropped  into  the  deep  water,  while 
my  sister,  the  other  fellow's  sister  and  I,  went  floating 
down  the  stream  in  the  wagon-box.  Before  I  had  finished 
reassembling  the  disunited  parts  of  my  outfit  I  learned 


132  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

that  before  driving  into  water  of  unknown  depth,  it  was 
wise  to  chain  the  box  down  to  the  running  gear  of  the 
wagon. 

Near  the  north  line  of  Iowa,  where  we  were  located, 
is  the  broadest  sweep  of  prairie  in  the  state,  because  there 
were  fewer  large  streams  here  than  elsewhere  to  stop  the 
destructive  fall-fires.  From  the  upper  Cedar  River  to  the 
upper  Des  Moines  River,  about  seventy-five  miles,  the 
distance  is  practically  one  broad  prairie.  Here  and  there 
some  lake  or  stream  may  have  protected  a  grove  or  belt 
of  trees,  but  these  spots  were  like  oases  in  a  great  desert, 
and  to  them  rushed  the  first  comers.  Such  a  settlement 
was  ours,  whose  inhabitants,  being  hundreds  of  miles 
from  steam  or  river  transportation,  were  compelled  to 
have  wood  to  keep  them  alive  through  the  hard  winter. 
Therefore,  if  a  piece  of  land  had  a  few  acres  of  timber  on 
it,  they  seemed  not  to  care  if  the  rest  was  brush  or  stone 
that  would  take  years  to  conquer,  or  swamps  that  would 
never  be  worth  anything. 

The  pioneers  who  waited  until  the  railroad  brought 
market  for  their  wheat,  and  coal  for  their  stoves,  and 
who  went  out  in  the  middle  of  the  prairie,  where  they 
could  sit  whistling  on  their  plows  while  they  broke  the 
raw  sod  in  furrows  half  a  mile  long  without  stop  or 
impediment,  rapidly  passed  the  old,  first  residents  in 
everything  that  marked  financial  success. 

In  the  fall  after  repeated  frosts  had  thoroughly 
killed  the  grass,  and  bright,  sunshiny  days  had  dried  it, 
came  the  warm,  hazy,  lazy  time  of  our  Indian  summer. 
We  soon  learned  what  that  hazy,  smoky  air  meant — 
prairie  fires  were  running  somewhere.     Then   everyone 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  133 

looked  to  his  protection  from  that  danger.  All  were  out 
everywhere,  plowing  fire-breaks  where  necessary,  and 
establishing  foundations  for  back-fires  where  deemed 
desirable.  Woe  to  the  farmer  who  neglected  these  pre- 
cautions. The  loss  of  his  crops  of  the  summer,  his  hay 
for  the  winter,  and  even  his  house  and  buildings — every- 
thing he  had — might  be  the  penalty  inflicted  for  his 
neglect. 

An  effective  fire  break  was  easily  made.  A  strip  four 
or  five  feet  wide  was  plowed  around  the  property  to  be 
protected,  then  four  or  five  rods  outside  of  that  plowing 
another  in  like  manner  was  made  thus  forming  two 
parallel  rings  a  few  rods  apart  aroiuid  the  exposed  build- 
ings or  stacks.  After  that,  some  still  evening,  the  grass 
and  everything  between  the  two  strips  that  would  take 
fire  was  burned.  This  with  proper  back-firing,  should 
emergency  demand,  was  amply  sufficient.  Few  fires  could 
jump  such  a  break. 

To  one  who  had  no  property  at  stake,  or  who  had 
adequately  prepared  for  it,  a  fire  at  night,  seen  from  its 
front  upon  that  great  prairie,  was  a  most  beautiful  and 
inspiring  sight  to  behold.  From  right  to  left  as  far  as 
could  be  seen,  the  broad  line  of  fire  might  be  rapidly  ap- 
proaching. The  sky  was  illuminated  to  its  zenith  with 
the  glow  of  the  advancing  flames,  as  they  sprang  high  or 
dropped  low,  governed  by  the  wind,  or  as  vegetation 
furnished  food  for  consumption.  No  wonder  that  men 
and  women  were  nervous  for  fear  the  mighty  onslaught 
would  jump  their  breaks  and  come  in  upon  them.  No 
wonder  they  prepared  for  a  "fight  to  the  finish,"  should 
disaster  demand  it. 


134  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

When  fire  swept  down  unexpectedly  on  an  unpro- 
tected settlement,  all  hands — men,  women,  and  children — 
turned  out  to  fight.  Often  the  battle  was  long  and  ex- 
hausting; the  tense  exertion,  hot  flame  and  dense  smoke, 
frequently  overcoming  the  contestants.  Some  rushed  their 
teams  with  plows  to  make  fire  breaks,  all  others  either 
back-firing  or  with  wet  blankets,  grain  sacks,  or  any  other 
available  weapon,  charging  the  flames  and  whipping  them 
out,  until  the  strife  was  won  and  property  safe,  or  the 
battle  was  lost  and  everything  burned. 

In  that  back-woods  epoch  "Live  and  let  live,  console 
and  help  your  neighbor"  was  the  motto  in  the  hard  times 
of  our  pioneer  days.  They  were  really  hard  times;  times 
when  whole  communities,  perhaps,  were  hungry  from 
failure  of  crops ;  times  when  they  were  cold,  owing  to 
hard  winters,  poor  houses  and  insufficient  clothing ;  times 
when  roads  were  impassable,  rivers  uncrossable,  and 
they  were  completely  cut  ofT  from  the  outside  world. 

And  yet!  And  yet!  Very  few  who  passed  through 
those  years  would  permit  to  take  them  out  of  their  lives : 
other  years  you  might  have,  but  not  these.  There  was  a 
democracy,  a  comradeship,  cemented  in  the  furnace  of 
their  hardships,  that  was  truer,  firmer,  and  more  lasting 
than  any  glitter  that  a  finer  civilization  could  produce. 
Could  a  man  leave  this  and  go  back  to  the  flesh  pots  of  an 
older  country  ?  Never !  Few  persons  who  once  got  the 
breath  of  western  life  ever  returned  east  to  live.  They 
might  be  nomads  moving  here  and  there,  as  many  were, 
but  they  always  moved  farther  west. 

We  had  a  fertile,  beautiful  country,  "fair  as  the 
Garden  of  the  Lord."  Its  oases  of  trees  dotted  the  land- 
scape here  and  there ;  flowers  thickly  scattered  over  the 


THE  SETTLING  OE  THE  WEST  135 

rolling  prairies  everywhere,  from  the  time  the  wild 
anemone  (Pasque  flower)  painted  blue  the  sunny  sides 
of  the  hills  in  the  spring — even  before  the  snow  was  all 
gone — until  fall,  when  the  goldenrod  flaunted  its  bril- 
liant yellow  in  the  face  of  coming  Jack  Frost,  himself. 

We  saw  this  country  not  with  a  stranger's  eyes ;  he 
saw  only  a  barren  land  devoid  of  everything  that,  to  him, 
made  life  bearable.  We  saw  it  not  as  Longfellow  des- 
cribed it — "Sea-like,  pathless,  limitless,  waste  of  desert." 
We  visualized  the  same  landscape  covered  by  future 
homes,  and  bounty-giving  fields,  and  fruit-laden  orchards ; 
by  town  and  cities,  with  schoolhouses  on  all  the  hills, 
and  churches  in  all  the  communities ;  and  these  all  pos- 
sessed by  and  for  the  benefit  of  our  children  and  our 
children's  children. 

We  loved  this  land :  we  worked  for  it,  and  when  our 
country  called  in  1861,  we  voluntarily  more  than  filled  our 
quotas  and  fought  for  it. 

But  some  of  the  deprivations^  compared  with  present 
modes  of  life,  were  not  caused  entirely  by  our  extreme 
Western  location,  they  were  partly  due  to  the  non-develop- 
ment of  the  country  at  large.  Before  the  Civil  War, 
whether  one  lived  in  the  North,  South,  East,  or  West, 
he  had  no  artificial  light  in  his  house  save  that  furnished 
by  oil  lamps  or  home-made  tallow  candles ;  he  had  no 
heat  except  what  was  furnished  by  fireplaces  and  wood 
stoves ;  a  very  large  percentage  of  sleeping  rooms  were 
without  heat  of  any  kind,  and,  when  necessary,  the 
"warming  pan''  was  filled  with  coals  from  the  fire-place 
and  pushed  by  its  long  handle  around  between  the  sheets 
of  the  bed  until  one  dare  go  to  bed  without  fear  of 
freezing. 


136  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

There  was  no  rural  mail  delivery,  therefore  no  daily 
paper,  and  probably  no  paper  at  any  time  other  than  the 
local  one  from  the  county  seat,  and  that  consisted,  per- 
haps, of  only  four  small  pages.  Postage  was  high ;  letters 
were  few  and  had  no  envelopes,  the  sheets  of  paper  being 
fastened  together  by  sealing  wax  or  wafer,  and  must  be 
delivered  at  the  town  post  office. 

Books  were  so  few  and  costly  that  not  many  families 
possessed  private  libraries  of  any  size,  and  access  to  a 
public  library,  the  farmer  had  not. 

The  family  was  largely,  if  not  wholly,  clothed  in  home- 
made garments.  The  wool  was  sheared,  carded,  and  spun 
on  the  farm,  woven  into  cloth  by  some  loom  in  the  com- 
munity, and  cut  out  and  made  by  the  women  of  the  house 
or  some  person  who  went  from  family  to  family  to  do  that 
special  work.  Not  until  the  fifties  did  the  young  men  on 
the  farm  commence  priding  themselves  on  being  the  pos- 
sessors of  "store  clothes." 

The  farmer  of  today  would  give  up  in  despair  if  com- 
pelled to  raise  a  crop  with  the  implements  then  used. 
The  agriculturist  of  those  days  had  no  silo,  no  gang  plow, 
no  hinged  drag,  no  disk,  no  seeder  or  drill  for  either  field 
or  garden ;  no  reaper  or  binder,  no  mower  or  hay-loader 
or  horse-rake,  fork,  or  corn-cutter,  and  he  never  heard  of 
a  motor  machine  for  farm  use.  This  old-time  farmer 
had  not  one  of  the  many  implements  that  an  up-to-date 
farmer  of  today  deems  absolutely  necessary  to  make  a 
crop,  and  yet  he  had  all  he  wanted,  and  all  he  knew  how 
to  use.  He  was  far  from  destitute  and  was  rich  compared 
with  the  farmer  of  Old  Mexico  who  does  all  his  work 
with  only  three  hand  tools :  ax,  hoe,  and  macheta.     He 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  137 

still  had  his  team  and  wagon,  or  cart ;  a  plow — of  narrow 
cut  and  with  only  a  cast  iron  mould  board — and  a  drag,  a 
grain  cradle,  a  scythe,  a  hand  rake,  a  pitchfork,  a  hoe,  an 
ax,  and  a  flail. 

With  this  small  outfit,  coupled  with  a  willingness  to 
work,  the  men  and  women  of  those  days  raised  a  few 
field  crops  and  the  best  generation  of  boys  and  girls  the 
world  ever  saw — a  generation  that  worked  the  wonders 
of  the  succeeding  fifty  years. 

The  towns  and  cities  were  lacking  in  modern  conve- 
nience quite  as  much  as  the  country.  They  had  no 
electric  lights,  no  telephones,  no  movies,  no  street  cars 
except  horse  cars  in  the  larger  cities.  Cable  cars  were  not 
introduced  until  1873,  nor  electric  cars  until  1888.  There 
was  no  hot  or  cold  water  in  rooms,  even  of  hotels,  unless 
carried  up  in  pitchers.  There  were  no  automobiles,  no 
bicycles,  no  railroad  trains  except  connecting  large  cities — 
even  Buffalo  was  not  reached  until  1842,  or  Chicago  until 
1852 — and  no  elevated  railroads  anywhere. 

Of  the  many  magazines  now  waiting  periodically  to 
be  bought,  only  two  could  then  be  found — Godey's  Lady's 
Book  and  Harper's  Magazine,  and  these  did  not  appear 
in  general  circulation  until  the  early  fifties. 

The  multitude  of  breakfast  and  prepared  foods  now 
on  sale  did  not  then  exist.  The  housewife  at  that  time 
was  compelled  to  do  all  the  cooking  for  the  family. 

Of  the  greater  sports,  baseball  was  then  "one  old  cat" ; 
tennis  was  "battledore  and  shuttlecock";  golf  had  not  yet 
crossed  the  ocean,  and  polo  had  not  arisen  above  shinny. 

Only  the  larger  cities  had  pavements,  and  those  were 
likely  to  be  laid  with  cobble  stones. 


138  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Drinking  intoxicating  liquors  was  a  common  habit. 
Even  when  the  minister  made  his  customary  pastoral 
visit  the  "toddy"  was  provided  and  duly  used.  Men  prided 
themselves  on  being  able  to  carry  their  liquor  without 
showing  it,  and  drinking  bouts  were  frequent  among  the 
best  citizens,  to  test  who  could  drink  the  most  and  get 
away  from  the  table  without  assistance.  Pocket  drink- 
ing-flasks  were  carried  as  commonly  as  watches,  and 
"Will  you  have  a  drink?"  was  as  frequent  a  greeting  as 
"Good  morning." 

Prices  for  labor  were  low  in  those  days.  Salaries 
amounting  to  eight  hundred  or  a  thousand  dollars  a  year 
were  liberal ;  unskilled  labor  received  from  seventy-five 
cents  to  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day,  and  skilled  labor  from 
a  dollar  and  a  half  to  three  dollars.  But  every  one  seemed 
happier  then  than  now,  when  even  common  labor  gets 
from  five  to  eight  dollars  a  day,  and  skilled  workers 
and  professional  men  have  only  the  sky  for  the  higher 
limit  of  their  charges — happier,  because  in  those  "good 
old  times"  there  were  thousands  of  costly  things  now 
deemed  necessary  that  then  were  not  cared  for,  or  known 
of ;  happier,  because  the  principal  requirements  of  living 
bore  prices  corresponding  to  the  worker's  wages. 

The  price  of  wheat  was  from  forty  cents  to  a  dollar 
a  bushel;  butter,  ten  cents  a  pound;  eggs,  fifteen  cents  a 
dozen ;  chickens,  twenty-five  cents  each ;  dressed  pork, 
two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  a  hundred.  At  a  Farmer's 
Institute  I  held  in  Cerro  Gordo  County,  Iowa,  in  1890, 
I  placed  the  following  then  debatable  question  on  the 
program.  "Is  it  cheaper  to  burn  corn  for  fuel  on  the 
farm  than  to  burn  coal  at  three  dollars  and  fifty  cents  a 
ton?"    The  question  was  earnestly  debated,  and  decision 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  139 

was  made  that  "if  the  farm  was  more  than  ten  miles  from 
the  depot  where  coal  could  be  bought,  it  was  cheaper  to 
burn  corn."  The  Clear  Lake,  Iowa,  market  for  April 
15,  1897,  was:  Oats  10-12;  wheat  56-60;  corn  10;  rye  20; 
barley  15-18;  potatoes  30;  hogs  3.30  to  3.50;  cattle  3.25 
to  3.75 ;  butter  10  to  12;  eggs  6  and  chickens  5. 

But  the  greatest  change  for  the  better  between  the 
before-  and  after-Civil  War  times  was  one  of  currency. 
Before  i860  the  only  money  that  one  could  take  from  one 
state  to  another  and  be  sure  it  would  retain  its  value  was 
gold  or  silver.  Banks  of  exchange  were  conspicuous  for 
their  absence,  and  therefore  a  cumbersome  belt  around 
the  body,  filled  with  gold,  was  a  traveling  necessity  where 
even  a  limited  amount  of  money  was  transported.  Bank 
bills  were  plentiful  but  mostly  of  the  "wild  cat"  variety 
that  might  be  good  today  and  worthless  tomorrow. 

Different  states  had  diverse  laws  covering  banks  of 
issue,  and  the  flood  of  paper  currency  sent  out  by  them 
was  correspondingly  valuable  or  worthless.  Ohio  had  a 
better  banking  system  than  other  states  and  thus  her 
currency  was  more  desirable.  Some  states  were-  lax  in 
requirements,  and  their  issues  were  to  be  avoided. 

Thompson's  Bank-note  Reporter  hung  near  the  cash 
drawer  of  every  store,  and  when  paper  money  was  pre- 
sented, that  book  was  consulted  to  ascertain  the  value  of 
the  bills  offered.  This  Reporter  listed  every  bank  of 
issue  in  the  United  States  and  stated  the  value  of  its 
bills.  The  value  might  range  from  worthless  to  par  ac- 
cording to  circumstances.  This  list  was  published 
monthly,  and  there  were  many  and  wild  fluctuations  in 
the  value  of  the  paper  currency  it  reported  from  time 


140  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

to  time.  So  great  were  these  changes  in  value  that  one 
might  go  to  bed  with  a  comfortable  roll  of  good  money 
on  hand  and  get  up  in  the  morning  still  possessed  of  the 
same  bank  bills  and  find  himself  "dead  broke." 

The  necessities  of  the  Civil  War  compelled  the  adop- 
tion of  a  national  and  stable  currency,  and  the  advantages 
accruing  from  the  banks  of  issue  Secretary  Chase  estab- 
lished may  have  equaled  the  cost  of  that  war. 

Banks  of  deposit  in  most  of  the  states  still  were  under 
few  or  no  requirements  as  to  the  opening  of  their  busi- 
ness, or  of  examination  during  the  continuation  of  the 
same;  the  liabilities  of  the  proprietors  of  such  concerns 
being  no  greater,  and  their  affairs  being  subject  to  no 
closer  supervision,  than  that  of  partners  or  proprietors 
of  any  other  line  of  trade. 

It  would  seem  at  first  sight  that  depositors,  not  hav- 
ing the  protection  that  recent  laws  provide,  would  have 
lost  their  deposits  more  heavily  than  now.  I  do  not  think 
this  was  true,  at  least  in  Iowa  and  adjacent  states.  The 
temptation  to  every  banker  is  to  use  his  depositor's 
money  'when  he  sees  a  proposition  that  promises  large 
and  fairly  safe  returns.  In  these  modern  times  financing 
new  corporations  and  speculation  in  stocks  and  produce 
are  the  pit-falls  that  alluringly  present  themselves  and 
secure  advance  of  cash  from  optimistic  bank  officials.  In 
old  times  it  was  choice  pieces  of  real  estate  being  sold 
at  less  than  their  value  that  lured  the  depositors'  money 
from  the  bank  safe. 

Of  course,  if  everything  went  as  expected,  the  depos- 
itors' money  was   safe  in  both   cases;  but  if  conditions 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  141 

went  wrong,  some  one  suffered.  When  the  hanker  of 
recent  years  is  caught  there  are  only  the  resources  and 
stock  of  a  broken  corporation  and  the  margin  and  colla- 
teral of  a  trade  deal  upon  which  to  rely ;  all  perhaps  com- 
paratively worthless,  and  the  depositors  are  the  victims. 
In  the  case  of  the  old-time  banker,  if  he  was  an  honest 
man  (and  he  usually  was),  his  choice  pieces  of  real  estate 
were  still  on  hand,  and  their  proceeds,  together  with  the 
other  resources  of  the  bank,  would  usually  pay  the  de- 
positors and  correspondents  in  full.  In  this  case  the  value 
of  the  real  estate  so  sold  would  be  slaughtered  without 
mercy,  and  the  banker,  not  the  depositor,  suffered. 

I  speak  knowingly  and  feelingly  on  this  subject  be- 
cause I  went  through  the  mill  in  the  last  eighties  from 
both  a  depositor's  and  the  banker's  standpoint.  I  was 
conducting  a  private  bank  and,  as  usual  with  Iowa  bank- 
ers at  that  time,  I  carried  the  bulk  of  the  bank  funds  on 
deposit,  subject  to  draft,  in  a  bank  in  Chicago.  My  Chica- 
go correspondent  failed,  and  I  received  payment  of  only 
ten  cents  on  the  dollar.  This  misfortune,  coupled  with  an 
illegal  act  of  my  cashier,  compelled  me  to  close  my  doors. 
My  bank  resources,  my  choice  pieces  of  real  estate,  and 
homestead  paid  my  depositors  one  hundred  cents  on  the 
dollar  inside  of  ninety  days.  My  private  obligations  were, 
of  course,  unprovided  for,  but  pioneer  sympathy  was 
with  me,  and  to  that  kindly  consideration  I  owe  the  fact 
that,  though  it  was  years  before  those  debts  were  all  paid, 
not  a  man  enforced  proceedings  against  me,  but  every 
one  gave  me  all  the  time  I  needed  and  all  the  courtesy  and 
encouragement  I  wanted. 


142  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

My  experience  of  eighty  years  has  taught  me  that  if  the 
Golden  Rule  is  hard  to  maintain  in  business,  this  para- 
phrase of  it  is  almost  sure  to  be  true : 
"As  ye  do  unto  others  even  so  others  will  do  unto  you." 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  143 

CHAPTER  IX 

"WESTWARD  HO!"     AND  THE  CALIFORNIA 

TRAIL 

In  the  summer  of  1858  the  exciting  news  came  from 
the  Rocky  Mountains  that  gold  had  been  discovered  at 
Pike's  Peak.  This  was  so  soon  after  the  rush  of  the 
"Forty-Niners"  to  California  that  every  one  remembered 
the  fortunes  there  made  in  the  placer  mines  of  that  terri- 
tory. It  was  proclaimed  that  a  new  Eldorado  had  been 
discovered,  containing  fabulous  wealth  for  those  who 
would  only  go  and  pick  it  up,  and  the  message  was  enthu- 
siastically received  and  heartily  believed.  All  the  winter 
of  1858-1859,  parties  were  organizing  to  start  immediately 
when  spring  opened. 

It  follows  without  telling,  that  a  foot-loose  boy  like 
myself  would  be  swept  away  with  the  crowd;  and  the 
spring  of  1859  found  me  driving  a  team  of  three  yoke  of 
cattle  to  which  was  attached  a  covered  wagon  bearing  in 
large  letters  the  motto  "Pike's  Peak  or  Bust." 

Early  in  the  season  with  ten  western  pioneers  from 
Northern  Iowa  we  left  our  homes  and  drove  over  forty 
miles  toward  the  west  across  an  absolutely  uninhabited 
and  treeless  prairie  until  we  reached  an  upper  branch  of 
the  Des  Moines  River.  Then  we  followed  a  track  down 
that  stream,  finding  at  intervals  gatherings  of  settlers  here 
and  there,  and,  occasionally,  block  houses  built  the  pre- 
ceding summer  as  protection  from  the  Indians  under 
Inkpaduta,  who  had  been  committing  depredations  at 
Spirit  Lake  and  elsewhere. 


144  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Reaching  the  town  of  Des  Moines,  now  the  capitol  and 
metropolis  of  our  state,  we  found  hardly  more  than  a 
village.  From  there  we  again  went  west  across  another 
prairie,  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  in  extent,  with 
houses  few  and  far  between,  until  we  reached  the  settle- 
ment of  Council  Bluffs  on  the  Missouri  River.  Should 
you  examine  our  route,  you  would  see  that  from  the  upper 
branch  of  the  Des  Moines  River  to  Council  Bluffs  via 
Des  Moines  is  a  very  long  roundabout  way.  Deviation 
was  deemed  desirable  in  order  that  we  might  take  advan- 
tage of  the  roads  that  joined  the  scattering  improve- 
ments made  in  the  timber  along  the  river ;  use  the  best 
fords  found  through  the  unbridged  streams,  and  follow 
the  safest  and  hardest  places  across  the  ungraded  sloughs. 

The  roads  we  sought  would  not  be  recognized  as  such 
today.  They  were  simply  trails,  unworked  wagon  tracks, 
two  parallel  strips  about  twelve  inches  wide  and  two  feet 
apart,  where  the  wheels  of  wagons  and  feet  of  teams  had 
trampled  down  the  grass,  leaving  the  middle  growing  as 
luxuriantly  as  elsewhere.  This  track,  or  road,  wound 
and  twisted  across  the  prairie,  following  from  ridge  to 
ridge,  to  find  the  smoothest  land,  and  going  often  miles 
out  of  the  way  to  seek  a  place  where  an  ungraded  slough 
or  unbridged  stream  might  be  crossed. 

Had  we,  at  that  time,  attempted  to  drive  the  short  way 
between  the  two  places  mentioned,  there  would  have  been 
no  track,  and  we  would  not  have  known  where  to  find 
crossings  of  streams  and  when  to  avoid  the  low,  wet  and 
miry  land.  We  would  have  been  compelled  to  navigate 
the  prairie  much  as  the  sailor  does  the  sea.  The  sailor 
has  to  avoid  rocks  and  shoals,  the  prairie  schooner  must 
miss  uncrossable  rivers  and  quagmires :  they  both  may 


THE  SETTLING  OE  THE  WEST  145 

make  their  way  by  landmarks  if  they  recognize  them,  or 
by  the  sun  by  day,  the  stars  by  night,  or  the  compass  when 
neither  can  be  seen.  Without  landmarks,  or  sun,  or  stars, 
or  compass,  the  driver  of  the  prairie  schooner  would  be 
as  helpless  as  a  sailor,  except  for  one  thing.  And  that  is 
the  dependable  compass  plant  (Silphium  Laciniatum.) 
Longfellow,  in  his  Evangeline,  gives  a  beautiful  descrip- 
tion of  it: 

"Look  at  the  delicate  plant  that  lifts 

its  head  from  the  meadow, 
See  how  its  leaves  all  point 

to  the  north  as  true  as  a  magnet ; 
It  is  the  compass  flower,  that  the 

finger  of  God,  has  suspended 
Here  on  its  fragile  stalk,  to  direct 

the  traveler's  journey 
Over  the  sea-like,  pathless,  limitless 

waste  of  the  desert." 

Evidently,  Longfellow  never  saw  the  plant;  but  his 
description  is  true  in  the  main — that  the  leaves  point  north 
and  south.  As  to  the  rest,  it  resembles  what  an  author 
of  a  work  said  when  he  described  a  crab  as  "a  small, 
red  fish  that  walks  backwards."  Submitting  this  to  a 
naturalist  the  opinion  was  returned,  "Absolutely  correct, 
except  the  crab  is  not  a  fish,  is  not  red,  and  does  not 
walk  backwards."  So  with  Longfellow's  description  of 
this  flower.  It  is  not  a  "delicate  plant" — it  is  the  largest 
and  sturdiest  one  growing  in  its  habitat.  It  is  never  found 
in  the  "meadow" — it  always  seeks  dry  land.  Neither 
leaves  nor  flower  are  "suspended  on  a  fragile  stalk,"  but 
the  leaves  grow  in  a  bunch  vertically  from  the  ground, 


146  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  points  of  their  pennatifid  leaves  pointing  north  and 
south,  the  central  stalk  rising  nearly  leafless.  It  is  never 
found  in  a  "waste  of  the  desert,"  but  always  upon  the  best 
of  land.  So  true  is  this  last,  that  if  a  seller  wants  to  con- 
vince a  buyer  of  the  fertility  of  a  piece  of  land  and  its 
adaptability  for  immediate  cultivation,  he  says,  "There 
are  plenty  of  rosin  weeds  (common  name  for  compass 
plant)  growing  upon  the  place."  Notwithstanding  the  mis- 
information Longfellow  had  received,  he  does  well  in 
calling  to  the  atention  of  all  the  great  fact  "that  the 
finger  of  God  has  placed  it  here.  .  .  .to  direct  the  traveler's 
journey."  Many  times  I  have  consulted  it  and  have  never 
been  misled  by  it. 

Council  Bluffs  was  really,  at  this  time,  the  limit  of 
settlement.  Across  the  river,  there  was  an  Indian  trading 
station  and  the  nucleus  of  what  is  now  the  city  of  Omaha. 
I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  a  single  farm  west  of  the 
Missouri  River  until  we  reached  the  irrigated  lands  of 
New  Mexico.  When  we  left  Omaha  and  its  buildings, 
we  were  past  the  bounds  of  civilization. 

According  to  old  opinion  and  the  reports  of  old  ex- 
plorers, we  were  now  upon  the  "Great  American  Desert." 
Explorer  Long,  after  whom  Long's  Peak  was  named, 
officially  reported :  "That  land  west  of  the  meridian  of 
Council  Bluffs  was  a  desert,  and  could  never  be  cultivat- 
ed." Dr.  D.  D.  Mitchell,  superintendent  of  Indian  affairs 
in  1842,  says  in  his  official  reports:  "If  we  draw  a  line 
through  Missouri  near  the  mouth  of  the  Vermilion  River, 
we  shall  designate  the  limits  beyond  which  civilized  man 
is  never  likely  to  settle.    At  this  point,  the  Creator  seems 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


u; 


to  have  said  to  the  tides  of  emigration  that  are  annually 
flowing  toward  the  west,  'Thus  far  shalt  thou  go  and 
no  farther." 

Following  these  reports  of  explorers  and  officials,  the 
geography  makers  drew  their  maps.  The  atlas  I  studied 
when  a  hoy,  showed  the  "Great  American  Desert"  west 
of  the  Missouri  River  marked  as  plainly  and  almost  as 
extensively  as  the  Desert  of  Sahara  in  North  Africa  or 
the  Desert  of  Gobi  in  China. 

It  was  almost  eight  hundred  miles  from  the  Missouri 
River  to  our  first  objective,  Fort  Laramie,  near  the  foot 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  In  this  long  distance,  there 
was  no  mark  of  white  man's  work  save  Fort  Kearney, 
about  half  way  there,  which  slightly  broke  the  monotony. 
There  was  no  fear  of  our  losing  our  way —  the  road  was 
plainly  marked  and  deeply  worn.  We  were  now  on  the 
old   California   Trail,   three   thousand   miles   long,    com- 


148  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

posed  of  many  parallel  wagon  tracks,  which  here  fol- 
lowed the  north  bank  of  the  Platte  River  past  Fort 
Laramie,  and  thence  into  South  Pass,  and  onward  through 
Utah  to  California. 

The  trail  was  largely  used,  first  by  the  Mormons  in 
1847,  when  their  advance  caravan  of  one  hundred  and 
forty-seven  people,  with  seventy-three  wagons,  drove 
over  it,  and  on  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  July,  wound 
their  way  down  the  Wasatch  Mountains,  and  first  saw 
the  valley  of  their  then  found  "Deseret." 

The  next  year  saw  their  great  migration  on  this 
route :  the  whole  Mormon  people  with  their  possessions — 
horses,  mules,  oxen,  and  donkeys  for  teams ;  cows,  sheep, 
goats,  and  even  swine  driven  loose ;  wagons — heavy  and 
light,  covered  and  uncovered — carriages,  buggies,  carts, 
and  even  wheelbarrows,  conveying  the  persons,  food  or 
property  of  the  multitude.  Some  rode,  many  walked, 
not  a  few  pushed  their  property  before  them  in  carts  or 
wheelbarrows. 

For  their  religion  and  misdemeanors,  these  people  had 
been  driven  out  of  Ohio  in  1833,  and  out  of  Missouri  in 
1838.  Then  they  settled  and  built  a  town  and  temple  at 
Nauvoo  in  Illinois,  but  their  leader  was  killed,  and  they 
were  driven  out  of  that  State  in  1846.  This  year,  1848, 
with  Deseret,  the  land  of  promise,  ever  before  their 
vision,  they  now  toiled  over  these  plains,  welcoming  the 
babes  that  were  born  and  burying  the  dead  that  failed 
along  the  way,  all  of  them  as  enthusiastic  and  devoted  a 
set  of  converts  to  a  new  faith  as  the  world  ever  saw. 

You  may  think  what  you  will  of  the  morals  and  reli- 
gion of  these  people,  but  no  one  can  help  admiring  the 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  \\  EST  [49 

courage  and  devotion  of  these  converts  who  left  every- 
thing that  they  had  in  the  world,  save  what  they  could 
take  witli  them,  even  though  they  had  nothing  hut  a 
hand-cart,  and  then  pushed  that  cart  more  than  a  thou- 
sand miles  to  make  a  new  home  at  the  bidding  of  their 
president  and  elders. 

One  year  later,  the  grand  rush  to  the  California  gold 
field  came,  and  the  long  train  of  "Forty-Niners,"  seeking 
wealth  in  that  land,  wore  the  ruts  still  deeper  and  made 
more  numerous  its  parallel  tracks.  It  is  now  half  a  cen- 
tury since  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  took  the  place  of 
the  caravans  on  this  trail,  but  I  will  guarantee  that  if  I 
could  find  a  piece  of  land  where  the  road  then  crossed, 
that  had  not  been  torn  up  by  the  plow,  I  could  see  the 
trail  yet,  still  so  visibly  present  that  it  would  be  followed 
with  ease.  I  so  found  the  Santa  Fe  trail  on  the  Arkansas 
River,  and  this  route  was  the  more  deeply  worn  and  the 
broader  of  the  two. 

Driving  west  from  Omaha,  and  seeing  not  a  resident 
or  soul  save  Indians,  we  found  the  broad,  muddy,  shallow, 
unnavigable  Platte  River.  This  stream  is  typical  of  all 
the  rivers  flowing  into  the  Mississippi  or  Missouri  Rivers 
out  of  the  mountains  from  the  west.  They  are  all  bright 
and  clear  where  they  leave  the  mountains,  but  soon  pick 
up  and  carry  along  the  light  soil  of  the  plains  which  they 
cross,  until  they  come  to  resemble  your  morning  coffee 
after  it  has  been  well  colored,  according  to  conditions: 
creamy  like  the  Platte  and  Arkansas,  or  reddish,  as  is  the 
Red  of  Louisiana  and  the  Colorado  in  Arizona.  Many 
are  simply  muddy  as  is  the  Missouri,  often  called  the 
"Big  Muddy."  For  a  long  distance  below  where  it  and 
the  Mississippi  meet,  the  clear  water  of  the  latter  does 


150  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

not  mix  with  the  muddy  water  of  the  former.  That 
greatest  fool  known  to  history,  "Thompson's  Colt,"  when 
he  "swam  across  the  river  in  order  to  slake  his  thirst," 
would  have  been  justified  if  he  lived  in  Missouri  at  this 
point  and  wanted  a  clean  drink.  If  the  water  from  any 
of  these  streams  is  dipped  in  the  evening,  it  will  settle 
over  night,  and  the  mud  and  sand  will  carry  down  with 
it  all  other  contamination,  leaving  it  clear,  pleasant  and 
healthful ;  this  is  the  usual  method  of  handling  it. 

The  vagaries  of  all  these  streams  are  freakish  and 
wild,  and  for  that  reason  many  that  carry  plenty  of 
water  are  unnavigable.  Bill  Nye  said,  "Western  rivers 
are  a  mile  wide  and  an  inch  thick ;  they  have  a  wide  circu- 
lation, but  little  influence."  They  seem  to  change  their 
banks  at  will,  sometimes,  even  at  low  water.  They 
spread  out  a  mile  wide,  but  one  may  easily  wade  across 
them  if  he  is  careful  to  avoid  quicksand. 

The  valley  of  the  Platte,  up  which  we  were  traveling, 
was  wide,  almost  perfectly  level,  and  bordered  on  both 
sides  by  gently  rolling  hills.  For  about  the  first  hundred 
miles  or  more  of  travel  in  our  "Great  American  Desert," 
we  considered  that  we  met  every  sign  of  fertility  and 
promise  that  we  left  in  the  favored  lands  of  Iowa.  Our 
judgment  has  since  proved  correct,  for  the  land  is  now 
covered  by  prosperous  farms  and  rich  towns. 

Farther  west,  the  soil  was  still  fertile,  but  the  scant 
rainfall  necessitated  a  change  of  vegetation ;  the  long, 
luxuriant  grasses  of  the  western  prairies  gave  way  to 
short  buffalo  grass  and,  in  dryest  places,  to  sage  brush 
and  grease  wood. 


THE  SETTLING  OF  Tl  I  E  WEST  151 

Tlic  success  and  riches  of  the  now  rapidly  passing 
ranches  of  our  one-time  "cow  country"  was  built  upon 
buffalo  grass.  This  grass  though  short  and  small,  was 
highly  nutritious.  It  ripened  before  the  frost,  and  unless 
late  and  heavy  fall  rains  came,  which  were  almost  un- 
known there,  it  retained  its  feeding  value  all  winter.  This 
condition  developed  a  very  desirable  financial  situation ; 
the  ranchman's  cattle  boarded  themselves  all  the  four 
seasons  of  the  year,  and  left  to  him  the  less  tedious 
detail  of  picking  out  bunches  of  his  horned  property  as 
they  reached  marketable  age  and  pocketing  the  money 
their  sale  produced. 

There  was  no  danger  of  our  becoming  lonesome  on 
our  journey  toward  the  mountains  for  the  California 
trail  was  this  summer  in  the  very  height  of  its  employ- 
ment and  usefulness.  Along  some  one  of  its  numerous 
trails  the  overland  stage  drove  a  three  thousand  mile 
trip  from  Council  Bluffs  to  Sacramento,  and  the  pony 
express  dashed  over  the  same  route  three  days  to  Denver 
and  eight  to  the  last  terminal. 

Three  distinct  classes  of  people  were  lining  the  borders 
of  this  thoroughfare  with  their  camps  and  filling  its 
trails  with  their  long  lines  of  wagons.  First,  were  the 
through  trains  to  California.  These  were  large,  thoroughly 
organized,  well-armed  and  efficiently  commanded.  Such 
organization  was  usually  made  at  its  outfitting  point  on 
tin-  Missouri  River.  Unless  the  train  was  controlled  by 
<»ne  interest,  its  captain  or  master  was  selected  in  some 
form  or  manner  mutually  agreed  upon.  One  such  elec- 
ii<>n  was  humorously  described  in  the  New  Orleans 
Picayune.  November   1.   [843.     "The  candidates  stood  up 


152  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

in  a  row  before  their  electors  and  at  a  signal  they  turned 
about  and  marched  off,  while  the  whole  mass  broke  after 
them  lickety  split,  each  man  forming  beTiind  his  favorite 
so  that  each  candidate  flourished  a  kind  of  tail  of  his 
own  and  a  man  with  the  longest  tail  was  elected — a  literal 
running  for  office." 

These  trains  were  required  to  be  thoroughly  orgam 
ized,  armed,  and  equipped,  because  in  1857  the  Mountain 
Meadow  Massacre  had  taken  place  in  what  is  now  Utah. 
In  that  tragedy  a  hundred  and  twenty  emigrants  bound 
for  California  were  slaughtered.  The  Mormons  insisted 
that  the  Indians  did  the  deed,  but  this  statement  did  not 
coincide  with  the  fact  that  much  of  the  rich  property  of 
the  plundered  train  was  found  in  the  possession  of  the 
Mormons.  The  doubt  of  the  innocence  of  the  people  of 
Deseret  heightened,  until  twenty  years  later  it  was  con- 
clusively proved  that  they  were  guilty,  and  John  D.  Lee, 
one  of  their  leaders,  was  hanged  for  participation  in  the 
crime. 

That  summer  we  knew  not  who  were  guilty.  There- 
fore, in  order  that  there  should  be  no  repetition  of  the 
tragedy,  through  trains  went  armed  and  prepared  against 
any  aggressors  whoever  they  might  be.  They  traveled 
with  all  the  method  and  precision  of  a  military  unit ; 
every  wagon  had  its  number  and  must  keep  its  place. 
When  they  stopped  for  the  night  they  formed  their  wa- 
gons into  a  circle,  the  tongue  of  each  chained  to  the 
rear  of  the  one  in  front,  thus  forming  a  very  respectable 
fort  for  defense  against  enemies,  or  making  a  corral  for 
their  teams. 

Teams  were  usually  composed  of  oxen  or  mules,  sel- 


TIM    SE  [TLING  OF  THE  WEST  153 

dom  of  horses.  Three  or  more  span  of  mules  or  yoke  of 
oxen  were  used  to  each  wagon,  and  when  only  three, 
the  first  was  the  lead  team,  the  second  the  swing  team, 
and  the  one  nearest  the  wagon  the  wheel  team.  The 
driver  of  oxen  usually  walked  most  of  the  time  unless 
things  were  going  unusually  well,  and  he  might  climb 
up  into  his  wagon  for  a  rest.  The  driver  of  mules  rode 
the  nigh  wheel  mule  and  directed  the  whole  six  by  a 
single  line  attached  to  the  bit  of  the  nigh  leader.  Stage 
and  circus  men  only,  use  a  line  for  each  horse  driven. 
Both  drivers  of  mules  and  oxen  use  as  a  propelling  force 
a  short-handled  long-lashed  whip,  and  a  vocabulary  long, 
loud,  and  lurid  enough  to  meet  all  expected  contin- 
gencies. 

The  second  class  was  the  Mormons.  Their  trains 
were  all  well  appointed,  but  as  they  had  no  enemies  to 
contend  with  they  were  neither  so  large,  so  thoroughly 
armed  or  disciplined  as  the  Californians.  They  seemed  to 
have  been  organized  as  much  for  proselyting  as  for 
freighting  purposes.  There  was  always  an  air  of  festivity 
about  them.  Dances  were  held  by  their  camp  fires  each 
night,  to  which  all  who  would  might  come  in  welcome. 
Apparently  ever}  thing  was  done  to  convince  the  Gentiles 
they  met  of  the  desirability  of  joining  them,  the  "Chosen 
people  of  God." 

The  third,  and  altogether  the  largest  class,  was  the 
Pike's  Peakers.  A  more  heterogeneous  lot  of  people,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  find.  In  some  respects  they  were 
worse  than  that  Mormon  migration  of  1848  that  I  tried 
to  describe.  A  few  of  these  gold  seekers  were  organized 
into  well-appointed,  well-conducted  caravans,  but  the 
main  body  traveled  as  they   saw   fit,  without  discipline, 


154  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

method  or  order,  and  many  times  without  discretion. 
Many  went  in  small  trains  of  a  few  wagons.  These 
usually  were  acquaintances  or  relatives  from  some  com- 
munity that  might  voluntarily  keep  together  for  company 
and  mutual  assistance. 

Such  a  train  as  this  was  ours :  we  had  three  families 
of  relatives,  three  men,  four  women,  three  children,  and 
myself,  an  outsider — eleven  persons  in  all.  We  drove 
four  wagons,  drawn  by  twelve  yoke  of  oxen  and  cows. 
The  last  were  brought  along  for  their  milk,  and  were 
put  into  the  teams  on  the  light  loads  because  it  was  the 
easiest  way  of  handling  them.  There  was  just  one  horse 
for  riding  and  emergency  purposes.  We  were  frontier 
people  who  knew  what  camping  meant,  and  came  fully 
prepared  for  it,  and,  better  than  all,  we  had  a  "boss" 
whose  supremacy  not  one  of  us  dared  to  dispute. 

This  boss  was  "Charley,"  our  oldest  man.  He  was  a 
"Forty-Niner"  who  had  crossed  the  plains  twice,  and 
who  was  an  experienced  miner.  Under  his  guidance 
everything  moved  as  smoothly  as  a  military  unit.  When 
we  camped  at  night  or  broke  camp  in  the  morning,  each 
person  knew  just  what  he  was  to  do,  and  went  quietly 
and  instantly  about  it.  When  Charley,  who  had  been 
prospecting  ahead  on  horseback,  led  us  to  his  selected 
camp  ground  and  held  up  his  hand,  each  driver  dropped 
his  chains,  unyoked  the  oxen,  drove  them  to  the  river  and 
let  them  loose.  Charley  and  Hoit  then  put  up  the  tent, 
while  George  and  I  alternated  in  finding  water  and  fuel. 
One  of  us  would  take  two  buckets  and  a  spade  and  wade 
out  into  the  muddy  river,  and  if  a  place  could  not  be 
found,  on  some  sand  bar,  where  the  water  had  filtered 
through  and  become  clear,  a  small  well  was  dug  and  filter- 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  155 

ing  waited  for.  The  other  boy  would  take  a  basket  and 
saek,  and  scour  the  plains  for  dry  buffalo  chips,  the  only 
burning  material  obtainable.  Meanwhile,  the  women  had 
commenced  getting  the  meal,  not  forgetting  to  open  up 
the  churn,  which  set  over  a  back  wagon  axle  and  held 
the  morning's  milk,  to  ascertain  whether  the  all  day's 
jolting  had  made  the  butter  for  supper.  As  work  was  thus 
regulated  at  night,  so  was  it  assigned  for  the  morning.  In 
this  manner  was  celerity  achieved,  and  order  and  comfort 
were  the  result. 

Few  others  were  so  fortunate  as  we ;  for  they  were 
persons  mostly  from  cities  or  communities  in  the  East  to 
whom  a  tent  was  a  mystery,  and  its  setting  up  an  unsolved 
problem.  The  building  of  a  fire,  where  there  was  no 
wood,  was  to  them  unheard  of ;  and  the  cooking  of  a 
meal  under  those  circumstances  was  an  impossibility.  It 
was  a  rare  train  of  this  kind  that  did  not  have  at  least 
three  or  four  bosses,  not  one  of  whom  knew  what  should 
be  done,  but  all  insistent  on  his  methods  being  adopted. 
Quarrels  resulted,  life-long  friendships  were  broken,  and 
partnerships  were  destroyed.  It  is  a  true  saying  in  the 
West,  "You  never  know  a  man  until  you  have  camped 
with  him." 

But  the  Pike's  Peakers  were  not  all  going  the  same 
way;  almost  as  many  were  driving  east  away  from  the 
mountains  as  were  driving  west  towards  them.  The 
reason  for  this  was  that  returning  miners,  who  had  been 
through  the  mines,  were  bringing  back  discouraging  re- 
ports. This  frightened  the  more  timid,  and  they  turned 
around  and  started  back  home.  Almost  universally  the 
migrants  had  painted  "Pike's  Peak"  upon  their  wagons 
when  they  started  for  the  mountains,  but  after  they  had 


156  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

turned  back  the  address  was  altogether  wrong.  To  avoid 
the  jeering  suggestions  that  they  would  meet,  they  added 
something  to  indicate  a  change  in  their  objective.  There- 
fore wagon  tops  reading  "Pike's  Peak"  were  changed  to 
read  'Tike's  Peak,  Not  for  Me";  "Pike's  Peak,  Over  the 
Left";  "Pike's  Peak  Not  for  Joseph,  No!  No!"  and  other 
phrases  of  negation  that  ingenuity  invented,  or  skill  por- 
trayed. 

But  there  were  others,  ourselves  among  the  number, 
who  proposed  to  go  through  no  matter  what  reports 
might  come  back;  and  these  men,  to  show  their  determi- 
nation and  to  hearten  others,  amended  their  address  to 
read  "Pike's  Peak  or  Bust."  Sadly  be  it  told  that  some 
of  these  brave  souls  also  gave  up  and  turned  East  deject- 
edly before  the  snows  of  the  mountains  came  into  view. 
These  men  were  again  compelled  to  amend  their  amend- 
ment so  that  their  signs  now  read  "Pike's  Beak  or  Bust" 
—"Busted." 

The  condition  of  some  of  these  returning  migrants 
was  pitiful.  Many  had  gone  to  the  mines  with  provisions 
and  only  money  enough  to  take  them  there,  thinking 
gold  could  be  dug  as  soon  as  a  claim  was  found,  and  if 
worse  came  to  worse,  they  could  work  for  another  until 
good  luck  came.  They  found  no  gold,  they  failed  to 
obtain  work.  Many  lost  even  their  outfits,  and  were  now 
compelled  to  walk  home,  foot-sore,  weary,  hungry,  and 
begging  their  subsistence  from  outgoing  teams.  People 
from  the  cities  and  the  East,  realizing  their  inability  to 
replace  provisions,  and  who  were  accustomed  to  refuse 
solicitations  for  aid,  could  drive  past  these  men;' but  we 
of  the  western  border,  who  were  used  to  dividing  every- 
thing we  had  with  those  in  need,  could  not ;  had  we  men 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  157 

been  so  disposed,  the  women  would  not  have  permitted 
any  one  to  leave  our  camp  hungry  so  long  as  there  was 
anything  left  in  our  wagons. 

In  consequence  of  such  liberality,  no  great  time 
elapsed  before  everything  eatable  was  gone  out  of  our 
wagons  except  flour,  and  the  boss-put  an  embargo  on  that. 
Something  must  be  done,  or  we  would  be  reduced  to  pan- 
cakes and  dudah  gravy,  and  very  short  rations  of  those. 
One  morning  Charley  started  in  advance  very  early ; 
about  mid-afternoon  we  saw  him  waving  a  signal  from 
a  mound  at  the  right  of  the  trail.  We  turned  our  teams 
and  drove  toward  him.  He  led  us  five  or  six  miles  to  a 
valley  covered  with  luxuriant  grass  that  he  had  found  by 
a  small,  willow-bordered  stream  in  the  hills.  When  we 
had  made  camp,  he  said,  "Now  we  will  give  the  cattle  a 
chance  to  rest  and  fill  up  on  this  grass  for  a  few  days, 
while  we  see  what  we  can  do  to  fill  the  wagons  with 
something  to  eat." 

The  next  morning  we  started  out  afoot  with  our  guns. 
We  were  in  the  edge  of  the  buffalo  country.  The  great 
mass  of  these  animals  we  had  not  seen,  but  among  the 
hollows  and  swales  of  the  rolling  plains  could  be  found 
bunches  of  males  which  had  been  driven  out  of  the  herd 
by  their  stronger  and  more  ambitious  antagonists.  They 
were  living  forced  lives  of  celibacy,  and  were  probably 
cursing  among  themselves  the  unfairness  of  buffalo 
aristocratic  government. 

We  found  such  a  bunch,  and  among  them  a  fine,  large, 
fat  fellow.  We  stalked  them  until  we  got  into  good  rifle 
range,  when  we  fired  our  rifles  and  he  fell.  We  could 
have  killed  more,  but  we  were  sportsmen,  not  butchers — 
one  was  all  we  needed.    Returning  to  the  camp,  two  of  us 


158  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

took  a  team  and  went  for  our  game,  while  the  remaining 
two  went  to  work  with  the  aid  of  the  women  and  built 
a  jerking  stand.  This  was  done  by  cutting  willows  from 
the  bank  of  the  stream  and  building  a  platform  about 
three  feet  high  and  six  feet  by  six  feet  in  extent,  covering 
the  top  with  willow  switches  several  inches  apart. 

When  our  buffalo  came  he  was  skinned  and  cut  into 
long  strips.  The  top  of  the  stand  was  covered  with  these 
strips,  a  fire  was  built  underneath,  and  the  sun  and  fire 
commenced  the  Indian  method  of  jerking  meat.  Its  con- 
tinuance and  completion  consisted  merely  in  turning  and 
re-arranging  to  promote  even  drying,  then  storing  away 
the  finished  strips  when  done,  and  adding  raw  strips  in 
their  places,  until  the  whole  carcass  was  properly 
"jerked"  and  packed  away  in  the  wagons. 

To  those  who  care  to  know,  I  want  to  say  that  where 
time  is  no  object,  jerking  meat  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  best 
method  of  cooking  and  preserving  it.  If  one  wants  it  hot, 
a  piece  steaming  from  off  the  stand  is  as  much  superior 
to  broiled  steak,  as  broiled  steak  is  superior  to  fried.  The 
finished  jerked  product  is  not  only  more  agreeable  to  eat, 
but  has  much  better  keeping  qualities  than  dried  beef. 

When  we  again  yoked  up  our  teams,  and  once  more 
took  the  trail,  our  women  had  sufficient  food  of  finest 
quality  for  all  hungry  men,  and  they  were  not  required  to 
withhold  their  giving,  for  should  the  wagons  again  be 
depleted,  all  that  was  necessary  for  us  to  do  would  be  to 
give  our  teams  another  resting  spell  and  repeat  our  hunt- 
ing experience. 

A  word  about  the  surprise  some  of  the  best  outfitted 
trains  received.     Some  such,  wishing  to  get  to  the  mines 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  159 

at  the  earliest  date,  seleeted  horses  or  mules  to  draw 
their  wagons,  thinking-  they  could  outstrip  in  travel  the 
slower  oxen.  They  were  disappointed  in  the  final  test: 
horses  and  mules  had  been  used  to  grain;  oxen  had  not, 
so  that  when  both  were  compelled  to  live  upon  the  grass, 
the  grain-fed  teams  lost  all  their  superiority,  and  the 
mileage  of  both  oxen  and  mules  became  about  the  same. 

Twenty  to  twenty-five  miles  a  day  was  what  the 
average  train  wanted  to  make  daily  when  the  roads  were 
good  and  food  plentiful.  This  might  be  reduced  to  as 
little  as  a  mile  or  two  under  adverse  circumstances.  Some 
tried  to  increase  this  rate  by  traveling  nights  during  the 
hot  weather  and  resting  days,  but  stock  did  not  thrive  on 
the  schedule,  for  they  wanted  their  nights  to  graze  and 
rest.     This  method  was  generally  given  up. 

Fort  Laramie,  on  the  upper  waters  of  the  north  fork 
of  the  Platte  River  and  lying  close  to  the  foot  hills  on 
the  east  slopes  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  was  our  second 
objective.  A  little  more  than  a  month  from  Omaha 
brought  us  to  this  place,  and  here  we  were  compelled  to 
make  a  long-delayed  decision.  Our  party  had  not  been 
entirely  immune  to  discouraging  reports  from  Pike's  Peak 
that  we  had  been  constantly  meeting,  but  we  differed  from 
the  returning  gold  seekers.  We  had  agreed  that,  come 
what  would,  we  were  determined  not  to  return  to  the 
East.  We  would  go  to  Fort  Laramie,  and  there  decide 
whether  to  go  along  the  east  foot-hills  of  the  mountains 
to  Pike's  Peak,  or  continue  west  through  the  South  Pass 
and  thence  onward  to  California. 

The  party  was  strongly  divided  as  to  which  alternative 
should  be  adopted  and  I  am  uncertain  what  the  result 
would  have  been  had  we  not  found  at  the  fort,  when  we 


160  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

arrived  there,  a  late  copy  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  This 
paper  contained  a  report  of  an  examination  of  the  mines 
at  the  Peak  made  personally  by  its  editor,  Horace  Greely. 
He  not  only  practically  endorsed  the  fabulous  stories  of 
riches  as  heretofore  told,  but  added  a  few  like  ones  of 
his  own  making.  This  settled  the  matter  unanimously 
for  our  whole  party,  and  with  visions  before  us  of  much 
wealth,  easily  made,  we  forded  the  river  and  set  our  faces 
towards  the  south,  along  the  foothills,  for  the  "Land  of 
Gold." 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  161 

CHAPTER  X 
ROCKY    MOUNTAIN   FOOTHILLS   AND    MINES 

Jubilant  with  prospects  of  success,  and  comparatively 
near  our  ultimate  destination,  with  high  hopes  and  happy 
hearts,  we  passed  where  Laramie,  Cheyenne,  Fort  Collins, 
Greeley,  J  Brighton,  and  many  other  towns  and  cities  now 
stand.  We  found  not  a  soul  in  any  of  these  places.  Their 
locations  were  there,  for  any  one  to  take  and  plat  for  the 
future  populous  communities  they  now  are.  From  Fort 
Laramie  until  we  reached  Boulder,  nearly  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles,  there  was  not  a  sign  of  occupancy,  save 
the  remains  of  Fort  Russell,  where  Cheyenne  now  is.  At 
this  place  our  troops  wintered  in  1857-1858  under  com- 
mand of  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  later  of  Con- 
federate fame,  while  on  their  way  to  straighten  out  the 
Mormons  after  the  "Mountain  Meadow  Massacre." 
There  we  found  the  empty  barracks,  where  our  soldiers 
had  lived,  and  the  tin  cans  the  contents  of  which  they 
had  devoured — and  nothing  more. 

For  the  first  few  weeks  after  a  camping  party  starts 
on  the  road,  it  is  necessary  that  they  watch  the  stock 
carefully  and  constantly,  whether  they  be  cattle,  horses, 
or  mules,  for  fear  they  will  leave  and  go  back  to  their  old 
home.  After  that  length  of  time,  they  consider  the  camp  a 
new  moving  home,  and  they  stay  by  it  as  contentedly  and 
closely  as  they  did  by  the  barns  and  stables  wherein  they 
were  born  and  raised.  After  such  length  of  time  there  is 
little  or  no  danger  of  their  straying  away,  unless  some- 
thing happens  to  create  a  stampede. 

This  danger  is  always  present,  and  its  cause  may  be 
anything  or  nothing;  a  straying  mountain  lion,  a  prowling 


162  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

wolf,  a  screeching  owl,  a  sharp  crash  of  thunder,  or  a 
bunch  of  Indians  swinging  their  blankets,  may  create  a 
panic,  and  away  the  animals  go,  all  together  at  their  ut- 
most speed,  in  their  mad  terror  as  dangerous  as  so  many 
wild  bulls,  should  one  dare  to  confront  them.  For  over 
a  thousand  miles  traveled,  our  cattle  had  been  so  con- 
tented with  us,  and  so  at  home  with  the  wagons,  that 
thoughts  of  the  well-known  risk  of  the  stampede,  at  this 
late  day,  had  practically  ceased. 

But  we  were  not  to  escape ;  at  last  one  suddenly  came. 
It  happened  near  midnight.  It  was  upon  us  in  a  mad 
rush.  I  was  cow  boy  that  night  and  as  it  had  been  ex- 
tremely warm  all  day,  I  had  lain  down  to  sleep,  divested 
of  all  clothing.  I  heard  the  first,  bawling  out-cry  of  the 
herd  when  it  started,  and  grabbing  the  bridle  at  my  side, 
took  no  time  to  dress,  but  was  instantly  chasing  the  horse 
which,  frightened  as  badly  as  the  worst  beast  in  the  bunch, 
was  madly  plunging  as  desperately  as  his  spancels  would 
permit  in  the  direction  that  the  cattle  had  gone.  I  man- 
aged to  calm  him  enough  to  get  his  bridle  on  and  his 
spancels  off,  then  jumped  upon  his  back. 

By  that  time  the  herd  was  out  of  hearing  and  I  had 
lost  the  direction  in  which  they  had  gone ;  but  the  horse 
knew,  and  the  moment  I  had  mounted  and  given  him  the 
bit,  he  was  away  after  them  with  the  speed  of  an  antelope. 
Charley,  who  stood  anxiously  in  the  door  of  his  tent, 
listening  to  every  sound,  heard  me  go,  and  turning  to 
his  wife  said;  "That  boy  is  riding  for  a  fall."  The  boss 
was  right:  I  had  nearly  overtaken  the  frightened  teams 
when  my  horse's  feet  struck  a  prairie-dog  house  and  he 
fell  so  flatly  and  heavily  that  he  rolled  completely  over. 
Had    I    retained   my   seat   on   his   back,    I    should   have 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST     *  163 

been  crushed ;  but  I  was  riding  so  rapidly  that  when  he 
fell  1  went  on,  how  far  I  dare  not  guess.  My  fall  was 
harder  than  his,  for  I  had  farther  to  go ;  it  was  so  severe 
that  under  ordinary  circumstances  I  should  have  lain  as, 
still  as  I  could  and  called  for  help,  but  there  was  no  time 
for  any  such  softness  now.  I  was  up,  and  as  the  pony 
scrambled  to  his  feet  I  mounted  his  back  and  rose  with 
him.  Away  we  went  again  with  no  lack  of  speed,  or  in- 
crease of  caution.  There  was  need  of  the  speed ;  we 
could  not  afford  the  caution. 

Finally  we  reached  the  herd ;  they  were  still  running, 
still  wild,  still  frightened,  still  ungovernable.  To  get  in 
front  of  them  was  useless,  dangerous,  and  perhaps  fatal. 
The  only  course  was  to  ride  among  them  and  talk  with 
them,  trusting  to  a  familiar  voice  to  calm  their  terrors. 
What  a  scene!  A  bunch  of  crazy  cattle,  a  naked  boy  on 
a  wild  horse,  conversing  with  the  dumb  brutes  on  various 
subjects.  Soon  my  own  team  recognized  my  voice  and 
stopped  running;  others  followed  their  example,  and  the 
>tampede  was  broken. 

Nothing  now  remained  but  to  work  them  back  to 
cam]).  Their  terror  controlled,  no  one  knew  where  that 
home  was  better  than  the  cattle  themselves,  and  so  all 
I  had  to  do  was  to  follow  along  behind  and  urge  the  lag- 
gards. About  the  middle  of  the  forenoon  we  reached  the 
tents  to  the  joy  of  the  occupants. 

Another  danger  to  man  and  beast  in  this  country  was 
alkali.  This,  present  nearly  everywhere,  was  abundant  in 
places;  many  times  large  areas  of  low  ground  were  so 
impregnated  with  it  that  they  looked  as  though  they  were 
covered  with  a  light  coat  of  snow.  Water  too  strongly 
alkalied   is   fatal.     I  never  knew  a  running  stream   that 


164  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

carried  a  sufficient  amount  to  be  dangerous,  but  pools  that 
are  remnants  of  ponds  collected  during  the  rainy  seasons 
may  be  deadly.  Cattle  will  not  drink  from  these  unless 
exceedingly  thirsty,  and  so  we  always  made  it  a  point  to 
see  that  they  were  driven  to  some  river  or  creek  before 
letting  them  run  at  will. 

But  despite  our  care,  we  were  victims  at  last.  It 
seldom  rains  where  we  were  at  that  time,  but  when  it  does 
the  clouds  roll  low,  thunder  breaks  with  a  tremendous 
crash,  the  "windows  of  heaven  are  opened"  and  a  genuine 
cloudburst  may  result.  We  encountered  one  such  storm. 
It  came  up  suddenly,  and  we  made  camp  with  all  possible 
speed.  The  rain  poured  in  torrents,  the  wind  blew  like  a 
hurricane ;  the  thunder  was  so  loud  and  the  lightning  so 
blinding  that  it  was  impossible  to  drive  the  teams  away 
from  the  wagon,  and  they  did  not  get  immediately  to  the 
stream  to  quench  their  thirst. 

The  result  was,  when  the  storm  had  passed,  the  land 
was  flooded  and  the  cattle  drank  the  new  fallen  rain  that 
had  dissolved  alkali  from  the  ground.  The  next  morning 
we  found  all  had  been  poisoned.  We  stayed  several  days 
doing  the  best  we  could  for  the  sick  ones,  but  in  spite  of 
our  best  efforts  six  of  our  twenty-four  head  of  cattle  died, 
and  when  we  resumed  our  journey,  I  had  only  two  yoke 
of  oxen  in  place  of  the  three  I  was  accustomed  to  drive. 

It  may  be  the  glamour  of  youth  that  has  filled  my 
mind  for  over  half  a  century,  but  looking  back  through 
all  these  years,  it  still  seems  to  me  that  the  scenery  along 
the  foothills  and  the  first  range  of  the  Rockies  of  Colo- 
rado challenges  comparison  with  anything,  anywhere,  for 
picturesque  contrast  and  beauty.  In  this  country  I  have 
seen  more  freakish  sights,  like  the  Grand  Canyon  of  Ari- 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  165 

zona,  higher  and  more  abrupt  cliffs,  like  El  Captain  in  the 
Yosemite  Valley ;  and  more  gigantic  and  higher  reaching 
peaks,  like  Mount  Shasta  in  California ;  but  for  scenic 
qualities  I  still  cling  to  my  first  love. 

And  why  should  it  not  be  so?  Is  not  contrast  the 
most  enduring  element  of  beauty?  Where  on  this  earth 
can  one  find  a  more  diverse  manifestation  of  the  unique, 
the  grand,  the  beautiful?  As  one  stands  upon  some  up- 
lifted crag  of  the  first  range  and  looks  east,  the  broad 
plains  roll  away  as  far  as  the  eye  can  follow  them,  not 
bare  and  desolete,  but  made  green  and  beautiful  by  the 
most  nutritious  grass  the  world  ever  saw.  Hundreds  of 
streams,  flowing  bright  and  clear  from  the  snowy  peaks, 
wind  their  way  eastward  by  devious  courses  and  mark 
their  progress  by  long  lines  of  trees  and  groves  that  their 
life-giving  waters  sustain.  It  is  a  beautiful  land,  lacking 
only  a  few  inches  of  rainfall  to  make  it  a  paradise.  As 
one  turns  around  and  looks  west  he  can  almost  hear  Wil- 
liam Tell's  welcome  to  his  old  home :  "Ye  crags  and  peaks, 
I'm  with  you  once  again."  Precipices  and  canyons,  bold 
peaks  and  narrow  valleys,  bald  mountain  tops  and  tim- 
ber-clad slopes,  meet  one's  view,  until,  far  in  the  distance, 
overtopping  all,  the  snow  range  that  crowns  the  continent 
and  divides  its  waters  east  and  west  dominates  the  whole 
scene.  So  I  saw  it  in  boyhood,  so  it  has  stayed  with  me 
during  my  life,  so  it  will  ever  remain,  a  glorious  memory 
of  our  picturesque  America. 

At  last  we  reached  our  final  objective — the  mines  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains.  But  we  did  not  find  them  at  Pike's 
Peak.  The  rich  ledges  of  Cripple  Creek  and  other  gold- 
producing  rocks  near  the  foot  of  that  mountain  were  not 
discovered  until  years  afterwards.    The  "Diggins,"  when 


1 66  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

we  arrived,  were  confined  to  a  strip  of  country  among  the 
crags  and  canyons,  about  forty  miles  north  and  south, 
lying  in  the  mountains  and  foot-hills  west  of  Boulder  and 
Denver,  two  villages  that  then  boasted  several  saloons  and 
a  few  houses  each. 

We  entered  the  mines,  hopefully,  near  the  first  place. 
Our  boss  was  a  cool-headed  miner,  with  several  years' 
experience  in  California.  We  looked  over  the  placer 
mines  that  had  been  opened  up;  we  prospected  new  val- 
leys for  indications  of  new  finds,  and  discovered  one  that 
gave  a  strong  color.  We  opened  it  up  from  wall  to  wall 
down  to  the  bed  rock.  We  found  gold,  but  as  there  was 
not  enough  to  pay  for  working  it  we  left. 

Illustrative  of  the  craze  which  seems  to  affect  all  gold 
hunters  alike,  was  the  effect  that  our  little  find  produced. 
The  fact  that  we  struck  gold  was  enough ;  thousands 
flocked  to  the  valley;  it  mattered  not  that  we  told  them 
the  pay  dirt  was  poor — they  thought  we  were  lying.  The 
fact  that  we  had  left  our  claim  as  worthless  failed  to  im- 
press them  for  they  believed  we  had  quit  because  we  had 
made  our  pile ;  they  insisted  on  tearing  up  the  valley  with- 
out reward  or  returns. 

We  spent  most  of  the  fall  prospecting  the  rocks  and 
gulches  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  until  Charley  at  last 
gave  his  opinion,  which,  to  his  credit  (though  given  then 
as  a  prophecy),  could  not  be  more  nearly  correct  were  I  to 
write  it  now  as  history  proved  by  half  a  century  of  exper- 
ience. His  decision  was  that  gold  was  here  in  consider- 
able quantity;  but  unlike  California,  there  had  been  very 
little  volcanic  action  to  melt  it  out  of  the  quartz  that 
usually  contains  it.  Therefore,  water  and  gravity  could 
not  work  it  down  into  the  streams  and  low  valleys  as  it 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  167 

did  where  the  California  placer  miners  found  it.  His 
further  opinion  was,  that  the  labor  and  machinery  neces- 
sary to  extract  the  gold  from  the  rocks  would  be  so  ex- 
pensive that  large  capital  would  be  required  to  work  the 
mineral  leads,  and  that  so  far  as  we  were  concerned,  even 
if  we  had  the  money,  there  were  better  chances  in  Iowa 
to  invest  it. 

Still  thinking  we  might  find  something  different,  we 
continued  prospecting,  hunting,  and  taking  life  easy,  mov- 
ing all  the  time  south,  among  cliffs  and  valleys  of  the  foot- 
hills and  plains,  as  need  or  fancy  called.  From  the  time 
we  left  Denver  until  we  reached  Fort  Union  and  the 
Spanish  town  of  Mora,  New  Mexico,  there  was  no  sign 
of  habitation  except  the  Spanish  grant  of  Maxwell's 
Ranch  located  forty  or  fifty  miles  south  of  the  Raton 
Range. 

It  was  a  land  almost  untouched  even  by  hunters. 
Buffalo  there  were  none- — they  seemed  to  be  ranging 
farther  east  this  year.  But  deer — both  black  and  long- 
tailed — ,  antelope,  mountain  sheep,  and  turkeys  were 
plentiful.  We  had  seen  many  signs  of  bear  but  no  bears, 
until  one  day  I  thought  I  saw  one  and  called  to  my  com- 
rade. 

"George,  do  you  see  that  bear  over  there  on  the  side 
hill?" 

"Bear!    Your  Granny,  that's  a  stump." 
"I  tell  you,  George,  it  is  a  bear;  I  saw  it  move." 
"Ah!"   replied  George.   "Rub  the  alkali   dust  out  of 
your  eyes   so  that  you  can   see   straight;  that's  a  black, 
pine  stump." 


1 68  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Just  here  the  discussion  stopped,  for  the  "black  pine 
stump,"  having  finished  the  investigation  of  our  outfit, 
dropped  from  its  sitting  position  to  one  upon  its  four  feet, 
and  ambled  away  towards  the  mountain  by  that  rolling 
gait  known  to  beardom  everywhere.  Instantly  every  team 
was  given  a  most  willing  rest,  and  all  four  of  us,  men  and 
boys,  seized  our  guns  and  plunged  into  the  brush  after 
his  black  impertinence.  But  the  search  for  the  gentleman 
was  unavailing — he  had  not  only  sat  by  the  trail  side  and 
seemingly  laughed  at  us,  but  he  had  also  made  good  his 
dare  and  got  away  with  it.  There  was  one  thing  that  the 
brute  did  not  take  away  with  him  when  he  vanished,  and 
that  was  our  longing  for  a  bear  hunt. 

During  the  summer,  we  had  met  and  vanquished  all 
kinds  of  big  game  of  the  plains  and  mountains,  bear  and 
elk  excepted,  and  here  seemed  the  chance  to  reduce  that 
exception  to  one  species. 

Buffalo  we  had  found  plentiful,  but  in  detached 
bunches,  as  the  main  herd  had  not  arrived  that  far  north 
when  we  drove  up  the  Platte  River.  Antelope,  nearby  or 
far  away,  most  always  might  be  seen  in  larger  or  smaller 
bands  grazing  quietly  or  running  swiftly  over  the  plains. 
Deer  were  seldom  seen  unless  looked  for,  but  along  any 
brush  or  grove-lined  stream  they  might  be  driven  out  by 
the  dogs.  Mountain  sheep  were  found  only  in  the  high 
hills,  and  were  captured  after  laborious  climbing  and  long, 
patient  stalking. 

All  these  we  had  hunted  to  our  satisfaction,  but  this 
was  the  first  time  bear  had  presented  itself  for  our  con- 
sideration, and  we  wanted  one  badly  for  several  reasons. 
We  had  lived  on  the  dry  meat  of  hoof  and  horn  game  so 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  169 

long  that  a  good  fat  bear  would  be  a  most  desirable 
luxury ;  it  was  almost  a  necessity  for  dietary  reasons, 
and  we  wanted  to  add  one  to  our  list  of  trophies. 

It  was  agreed  by  unanimous  vote  that  we  would  drive 
until  we  found  water,  and  then  make  a  camp  and  go  bear 
hunting.  We  soon  found  a  beautiful  stream  flowing 
bright  and  clear  from  the  mountains,  made  camp,  cared 
for  the  teams,  and  George  and  I  ate  our  dinner.  We  were 
ready  for  business,  but  where  were  the  two  old  hunter 
frontiersmen,  the  men  who  were  the  head  and  front  of  our 
party?  The  humiliating  fact  developed  that  they  did  not 
want  us  two  boys  along  on  this  important  trip ;  they  had 
slipped  off  by  themselves  while  we  hearty  growing  boys 
were  attending  to  what  we  considered  a  more  important 
matter,  getting  something  to  eat.  George  and  I  called  an 
indignation  meeting  and  resolved,  that  if  the  old  hunters 
did  not  want  us  there  was  no  law  that  we  knew  of  that 
would  prevent  us  from  going  bear  hunting  ourselves. 
We  went.  The  valley  where  we  had  stopped  proved  to  be 
full  of  game,  and  all  of  it  seemed  to  know  that  we  were 
after  bear  and  would  not  that  day  shoot  at  anything  else. 

One  insulting  gentleman,  a  magnificent  black-tailed 
buck  with  a  head  of  antlers  that  would  grace  the  proudest 
banquet  hall,  stood  upon  a  little  plateau  some  fifty  feet 
above  us,  not  more  than  fifty  yards  away,  and  gazed  upon 
us  unconcernedly,  as  much  as  to  say.  "Who  are  you  and 
what  are  you  doing  here?  Don't  you  know  that  I  am 
monarch  of  this  valley?"  His  insolence  was  more  than  I 
could  bear,  and  I  raised  my  rifle  to  shoot,  but  George 
stopped  me,  saying,  "We  can  get  deer  any  time  we  want 
it.  What  we  want  today  is  bear,  and  by  shooting  your 
rifle  you  will  scare  any  here  into  hiding."     George  was 


i/o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

right,  and  we  watched  his  majesty  march  away  as  proud 
and  haughty  as  any  biped  king  could  possibly  be,  but  much 
more  handsome. 

Time  had  reached  mid-afternoon ;  we  were  tired ;  we 
had  climbed  cliffs  and  searched  valleys,  but  we  had  found 
nothing,  and  were  going  leisurely  back.  On  a  high  bluff 
overlooking  the  valley  of  the  stream  where  camp  had  been 
made,  we  flung  ourselves  upon  the  soft  needles  beneath 
the  pinion  trees,  and  commenced  to  feast  both  our 
aesthetic  and  physical  natures,  the  former  by  marking  the 
beauty  and  grandeur  of  the  scene  before  us,  and  the  latter 
by  reinforcing  a  hasty  dinner  with  the  pinion  nuts  which 
were  scattered  in  profusion  upon  the  ground. 

There  was  one  great  advantage  in  still-hunting  in  that 
country  at  that  time.  If  one  got  tired  of  stalking  the 
game  and  would  sit  down  and  be  quiet,  the  game  might 
perhaps  stalk  him — a  fact  which  proved  true  that  after- 
noon. We  were  leisurely  enjoying  ourselves,  when  we 
discovered  two  bears,  an  old  one  and  a  two-thirds  grown 
cub,  that  had  evidently  been  down  to  the  river  making  a 
meal  of  the  luscious  cherries  that  abounded  everywhere 
along  the  bank,  and  now  seemed  disposed  to  come  up  into 
the  bluffs  for  an  added  course,  or  dessert,  of  pinion  nuts. 

We  hid  ourselves  and  calculated  where  they  would 
be  likely  to  climb  the  cliff.  Then,  finding  a  parallel  canyon, 
we  commenced  climbing  the  other  side  of  the  mountain, 
thinking  when  we  reached  the  top  we  might  meet  them. 
We  did.  As  we  carefully  raised  our  heads  over  the  edge 
of  the  cliff  at  the  summit,  they  were  not  six  rods  away, 
and  looked  as  big  as  elephants.  A  picture  of  the  hasty 
descent  of  two  boys  down  that  mountain  side  might  be 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  171 

interesting,  but  inglorious.  Not  finding  ourselves  pur- 
sued, I  called  a  halt  and  said,  "George,  this  won't  do,  we 
came  out  for  bear,  and  let's  have  a  shot  at  them  any 
way." 

"But,"  replied  George,  "they  are  grizzlies,  and  we 
can't  kill  them  with  our  guns  but  they  can  and  will  kill 
us." 

"Are  you  sure,  they  are  grizzlies?" 

"Yes,  sure,"  said  he.  "Didn't  you  see  their  color?"  1 
had  noticed  their  color,  I  had  also  noted  the  insufficiency 
of  our  arms.  George  had  a  squirrel  rifle,  shooting  a  ball  a 
hundred  to  the  pound,  hardly  larger  than  a  buck  shot ; 
I  had  one  about  calibre  forty ;  neither  bullet  was  large 
enough  to  even  cripple  badly  a  grizzly  unless  fired  into 
its  heart  or  its  brains. 

The  chance  to  put  a  bullet  in  either  place  was  exceed- 
ingly small.  Still  I  did  want  a  shot  at  the  fellows,  and  so 
I  said  to  George :  "If  you  are  sure  these  bears  are 
grizzlies,  we  can  safely  have  a  whack  at  them.  A  grizzly 
cannot  climb,  we  can.  Let's  go  up,  pick  out  trees  easily 
mounted,  and  have  our  shots  at  them.  If  they  charge  us 
we  can  climb  our  tree." 

George  certified  that  they  were  grizzlies,  and  I  certi- 
fied that  grizzlies  could  not  climb  trees ;  then  we  re- 
turned to  the  attack.  The  plan  of  battle  was  this : 
George,  the  better  shot,  was  to  take  the  old  bear  first.  If 
he  killed  her,  I  was  to  take  the  young  one.  If  he  did 
not  kill  his  game,  and  she  charged,  then  I  was  to  give 
her  my  shot.  That  failing  to  down  her,  we  were  to  take 
to  our  previously  located  trees.  We  had  now  recovered 
from  our  scare ;  George,  at  least,  was  as  steady  as  an  old 
veteran. 


172  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

We  approached  our  former  outlook,  the  bears  had  not 
discovered  us  and  were  still  in  the  same  place ;  they  were 
playing  in  a  little  pond  of  water  caught  by  a  cup  in  the 
rocks.  George  waited  until  his  antagonist  turned  her 
side  squarely  towards  him;  then  aiming  six  inches  back 
of  her  fore  shoulder,  he  fired.  A  loud  roar,  a  shrieking 
yell,  some  convulsive  rollings  upon  the  ground,  and  all 
danger  was  past.    The  game  was  ours. 

As  for  the  young  bear,  his  astonishment  and  dismay 
were  amazing.  Not  a  moment  was  he  still  enough  for  a 
shot,  but  I  took  him  on  the  fly  and  the  bullet  just  creased 
his  back.  He  ran  for  a  grove  lower  down  the  slope  with 
us  after  him.  Where  do  you  think  we  found  him?  Not 
in  a  rock-strewn  den,  nor  in  a  dark,  dismal  cave,  but  in 
the  top  of  the  highest  tree  in  the  grove  from  which 
another  bullet  soon  dropped  him. 

These  were  not  grizzlies,  nor  were  they  black  bear. 
They  were  silver  tips,  of  which  Kit  Carson,  the  noted 
scout  of  that  time,  said,  'They  are  as  much  meaner  to 
fight  than  the  grizzlies  as  the  grizzly  is  meaner  than  the 
black."  The  only  thing  that  prevented  two  boys  from 
leaving  their  bones  where  no  one  would  ever  find  them, 
was  revealed  when  we  opened  the  large  brute,  and  found 
that  George's  bullet  had  gone  straight  through  her  heart 
— an  inch  either  way,  the  shot  would  have  failed.  Then 
was  the  time  when  we  could  both  truly  have  said  we 
came  within  an  inch  of  losing  our  lives. 

Two  proud  boys  returned  to  camp  and  our  pride  was 
augmented  to  an  almost  insufferable  point  when  we  found 
that  the  old  hunters  had  captured  no  bear  that  day,  nor 
did  they  do  so  during  the  whole  trip.  That  afternoon's 
luck  was  a  God-send  to  us  boys.     Heretofore,  if,  when 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


173 


driving  deer,  we  were  placed  upon  a  runway  and  per- 
mitted one  to  pass  without  killing  it,  sorry  times  fell  upon 
us.  We  were  told  the  utter  degeneracy  of  all  our  fore- 
bears and  informed  of  the  depths  of  infamy  to  which  we, 
without  doubt,  would  descend — all  so  decidedly  and  em- 
phatically told  that  the  surrounding  air  seemed  to  get 
blue.  After  that  day,  when  such  mishap  occurred  and  the 
customary  fireworks  began,  all  we  had  to  do  was  to  men- 
tion the  subject  of  shooting  bear,  and  peace  nestled  close 
in  camp. 

It  was  a  beautiful  place  where  we  had  made  our 
camp.  The  Purgatory  River,  then  called  the  "Picket- 
ware,"  flowed  past,  fresh  and  clear  from  the  snows  upon 
the  mountains,  playing  hide  and  seek  among  the  cluster- 
ing trees  that  reached  far  away,  their  magic  beauty  set 
forth  and  heightened  by  the   frowning  summits  of   the 


Residences  in  Trinidad 
X:  Where  George  and  I  killed  the  two  bears  in  185Q 


174  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

towering  precipice  upon  either  side.  In  all  the  two  years 
of  my  western  wanderings,  in  no  place  did  I  ever  see 
game  so  plentiful.  The  groves  and  hills  swarmed  with  it. 
The  place  was  far  from  civilization:  no  homes,  nor 
ranches,  nor  improvements  of  any  kind,  were  nearer 
than  Denver,  two  hundred  miles  north.  East  and  north- 
east, Bent's  Fort  was  the  first  neighbor,  and  beyond  that 
it  was  four  hundred  miles  to  where  the  white  folks  of 
Kansas  lived.  West,  two  ranges  of  mountains  and  six 
hundred-  miles  intervened  before  one  could  reach  the 
valley  where  the  Mormons  were  building  their  Deseret; 
south  and  southwest  there  was  nothing  but  Indians  until 
the  Spanish  settlements  reaching  up  from  old  Mexico 
came  into  view. 

What  a  place  for  such  a  bunch  of  pioneers  as  we  were 
to  take  pre-emption  claims  and  settle  down !  With  pure 
water  abundant,  groves  and  timber  for  fire  and  building 
without  end,  uncounted  game  for  meat,  luxuriant  and 
luscious  fruit  along  the  river  banks  for  dessert,  and,  if  we 
saw  fit  to  use  it,  even  bread  in  bountiful  store  beneath  the 
pinions  (P.  Edulis)  upon  the  hills — what  more  could  we 
ask?  We  debated  the  question,  but  Charlie,  our  mentor, 
decided  that  the  claims  were  so  far  away  from  any  settle- 
ment that  they  would  never  be  of  any  value,  and  so  a 
fortune  was  lost  for  all  of  us. 

When  I  visited  the  place  in  1918  I  found  that  the 
city  of  Trinidad  with  its  bustling  business,  rattling  street 
cars,  paved  avenues,  and  long  rows  of  tall,  commercial 
blocks  had  wiped  out  the  scene  of  sylvan  beauty  which  I 
had  left,  seemingly  only  a  short — a  very  short — time  ago. 
When  I  discovered  the  easily  recognized  little  plateau 
from    which    the    black-tailed    buck    had    so    scornfully 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


175 


questioned  my  right  to  be  there,  I  found  a  college  build- 
ing. Close  up  around  the  ledge  where  George  and  I  had 
our  adventure  was  clustered  the  residential  section  of  a 
large  city.  Where  deer  then  fed,  now  were  buildings 
costing  three  hundred  thousand  dollars ;  where  the  cher- 
ries hung  along  the  river  bank,  the  Santa  Fe  railroad  now 
displayed  its  extensive  depots  and  endless  yards ;  and 
where  we  were  forced  to  swim  the  Picketware  River  a 
modern  cement  bridge  spanned  the  stream. 

We  had  left  the  place,  seemingly  but  just  the  other 
day,  a  spot  of  beauty  as  Nature  had  made  it — I  returned 
to  find  it  a  populous,  busy,  wide-awake,  energetic  city, 
and  it  had  grown  up,  not  during  my  life  time,  but  during 
a  short  period  of  my  mature  years.  This  growth  of 
Trinidad  is  remarkable,  but  still  more  remarkable  is  the 
fact  that  such  growth  is  not  exceptional ;  it  is  only  a 
sample  of  what  hundreds  of  other  cities,  upon  the  plains 


Bridge  at  Trinidad  where  we  Forded  the  River  in   18 


59 


1.7' 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


and  in  the  mountains  of  our  West,  have  likewise  accom- 
plished in  the  same  time — some  of  them  to  a  greater 
extent.  But  we,  blind  to  this  future,  turned  our  backs 
to  the  fortunes  lying  there  awaiting  any  one's  taking 
and  resumed  our  way  toward  Arizona. 

A  small  stream  flows  out  of  the  Raton  Mountains 
from  the  south  and  enters  the  Picketware,  or  Purgatory 
River,  near  where  we  had  camped.  Up  this  creek  fol- 
lows the  Santa  Fe  trail  in  order  to  make  the  Raton 
Pass.  Here,  the  water,  working  day  and  night,  without 
Sundays  or  holidays  off,  for  millions  of  years,  has  cut  a 
canyon,  deep  but  not  wide.  Sometimes  the  stream  flows 
close  to  the  mountains  upon  one  side,  and  then  crosses 
to  the  other  side  of  the  gorge.  Every  time  the  stream 
did  this  when  we  climbed  through  the  pass,  we  were 
necessarily  compelled  to  ford  each  time  the  stream 
swerved  from  one  side  to  the  other ;  at  times  after  getting 


Street  tn  Trinidad  where  the  Deer  were  Running  in  1859 


THE  SETTLING  OK  THE  WEST  177 

into  the  stream,  we  might  be  forced  to  drive  along  its 
bed  some  distance  before  we  had  a  chance  to  emerge  upon 
either  bank.  Needless  to  say,  it  was  hard  going  for 
wagons,  teams,  and  drivers.  When  we  were  near  the 
top  of  the  pass — eight  thousand  to  ten  thousand  feet 
altitude — we  found  an  unsually  rocky  stretch  of  the  trail ; 
there  we  had  the  misfortune  to  break  a  wagon  wheel — 
nearly  every  spoke  in  it  was  shattered,  and  no  wagon  shop 
was  nearer  than  the  Spanish  settlement  of  New  Mexico. 

I  thought  we  should  certainly  have  to  leave  the  wagon 
and  throw  away  at  least  part  of  its  load,  but  I  had  under- 
estimated the  resources  of  the  boss.  He  ordered  camp 
made,  and  under  his  direction  we  hewed  and  whittled 
out  new  spokes,  drove  them  into  the  hubs,  built  a  fire, 
reset  the  tire,  and  went  on  our  way. 

Moro  and  Toas  are  the  first  towns  of  the  Mexican 
settlement  reaching  northeast  from  Old  Mexico  that  we 
came  to,  and  we  made  a  halt  near  the  first-named  place. 

These  towns  and  this  territory  became  ours  as  the 
result  of  the  Mexican  war.  The  acquisition  of  New 
Mexico  and  Arizona  by  the  United  States  was  so  com- 
paratively recent,  and  they  were  so  isolated  from  our 
central  government  that,  although  in  theory  they  were 
subject  to  our  jurisdiction,  in  fact,  the  customs  and  laws 
of  Mexico  were  the  only  ones  observed  by  the  general 
public.  For  instance:  legally,  peons  were  free  after  the 
territory  was  annexed,  but  peonage  flourished  as  fully 
when  we  were  there  as  it  ever  did  when  Mexico  governed 
the  land.  I  saw  at  one  time  nearly  a  dozen  peons  bucked, 
gagged,  and  in  this  helpless  condition  exposed  for  hours 
to  the  torment  of  the  flies  and  mosquitos,  just  because 
their  creditor  had  ordered  them  not  to  gamble  and  they 
had  disobeyed  him. 


1 78  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Other  than  the  soldiers  in  the  army,  the  only  Amer- 
icans in  the  country  were  discharged  soldiers  who  had 
married  Mexican  girls  and  made  settlements,  outlaws 
who  had  "left  their  country  for  their  country's  good ," 
and  wandering  hunters  and  prospectors  like  ourselves. 
Under  this  condition,  common  and  agricultural  labor  was 
abundant,  but  skilled  workmen  of  all  varieties  exceed- 
ingly scarce. 

One  day  I  heard  a  ranchero  say  he  would  give  fifty 
cents  a  bushel  for  all  the  charcoal  a  man  could  burn  in 
one  pit.  As  I  was  absolutely  without  money  and  it  was 
a  "ground-hog-case"  with  me,  I  told  him  if  he  would  haul 
it  from  the  pit,  I  would  burn  it  for  him :  he  agreed,  and  I 
took  the  job.  I  knew  nothing  about  charcoal  burning — 
had  never  even  seen  a  pit,  but  it  struck  me  that  where 
wood  cost  nothing,  coal  at  that  price  was  as  good  as  a 
gold  mine,  and  a  great  deal  easier  worked. 

I  risked  my  ability  to  make  good  on  this  contract  upon 
the  peculiar  make-up  of  the  American  army.  It  has 
proved  true  in  all  emergencies  of  both  war  and  peace  that 
should  contingencies  arise  requiring  the  performance  of 
any  particular  act  of  construction  or  repair,  there  was 
always  some  one  in  the  ranks  who  knew  how  it  should  be 
done.  The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  go  up  to  Fort  Union 
and  hunt  for  a  soldier  who  had  burned  charcoal :  I  found 
one,  and  he  gave  me  all  the  time  and  information  I 
wanted.  He  told  me  what  to  do  from  the  time  I  con- 
structed my  flues  and  chimney  at  the  start  until  I  finally 
banked  up  and  put  out  the  fire  when  carbonization  was 
complete.  I  succeeded  with  my  coal,  but  I  lost  my  com- 
panions of  the  past  season.    They  concluded  to  return  to 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  179 

the  States  while  my  pit  was  still  burning,  and  I  could  not 
afford  to  leave  it  and  go  with  them. 

I  remained  in  the  vicinity  of  Fort  Union  and  Mora 
until  late  the  next  spring,  when  by  that  time  I  had  learned 
to  sputter  a  little  Mexican  Spanish ;  had  become  tired  of 
a  country  where  no  crops  could  be  raised  without  irriga- 
tion;  had  become  disgusted  with  the  mongrel,  Spanish- 
Indian  "greasers"  that  inhabited  it,  and  had  gathered 
enough  money  to  purchase  an  outfit  and  return  to  "God's 
country"  as  told  in  the  "Passing  of  the  Indian." 


i8o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  XI 

WHICH  IS  THE  BETTER  HALF  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES 

The  unimpeachable  march  of  events  has  proved  that 
the  explorer  was  wrong  who  said  that  "all  west  of  the 
meridian  of  Council  Bluffs  was  a  desert  that  never  could 
be  cultivated,"  and  the  official  was  mistaken  who  placed 
a  meridian  line  in  Missouri  where  he  asserted  that  "the 
Almighty  had  said  civilization  could  never  cross." 

Now,  in  this  latter  day,  come  those  who  take  an  oppo- 
site view  from  these  older  prophets.  They  assume  the 
ninety-seventh  meridian — near  Wichita,  Kansas — as  the 
farthest  point  west  where  crops  can  be  successfully  grown 
without  irrigation,  and  then  they  shock  all  of  our  precon- 
ceived ideas  and  supposedly  settled  physical  facts  regard- 
ing our  country  by  maintaining  that  the  best  part  of  the 
United  States  lies  west  of  that  line.  By  the  best,  they  do 
not  mean  largest,  which  may  be  true,  but  best  in  all  its 
material,  aesthetic,  and  life-giving  resources.  This  star- 
tling proposition,  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  means  that 
the  part  of  our  country  which  at  my  birth  was  either 
unknown  or  considered  of  little  or  no  value,  has,  during 
my  lifetime,  become  worth  more  than  all  the  portion  that 
we  then  rightly  knew. 

Our  western  brothers  are  not  without  some  ground 
for  their  optimism.  They  have  the  higher  peaks,  the 
deeper  chasms,  the  richer  mines,  and,  in  places,  the  better 
climate  for  the  ailing  and  the  aged.  But  we  of  the  East 
possess  the  larger  rivers,  the  longer  line  of  seaboard,  a 
climate  that  produces  strong  men  and  vigorous  women, 
and,  more  than  all  else,  we  have  a  much  greater  extent 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


181 


of  food-producing  lands.  The  fact  is  that  cast  of  the 
line  mentioned,  there  is  probably  not  more  than  twenty 
per  cent  of  the  country  that  cannot  be  successfully  culti- 
vated ;  west  of  the  same,  there  is  not  twenty  per  cent  that 
can  be  so  used. 

The  west  is  a  land  of  contrasts.  It  has  lakes  situated 
many  thousands  of  feet  above  ocean  level  and  seas  nearly 
as  far  below.  It  possesses  high-reaching  mountain  tops 
covered  by  perennial  snows,  sparkling  streams,  roaring 
water  falls,  but  also  dry  places  where  scarcely  a  drop  of 
water  falls  the  year  around.  One  can  find  precipitous 
clififs  nearly  a  mile  high  and  dark  canyons  more  than  that 
distance  deep.  Within  its  borders  lie  parks,  like  the 
Yosemite  and  Yellowstone,  the  most  beautiful  in  the 
world,  and  wide  deserts  like  Mohave  and  Death's  Valley, 
the  most  drear  and  forbidding  in  all  creation. 


The   Grand   Canyon,   from    Mohave    Point 


182  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

It  is  new  and  yet  it  is  old.  It  is  new  geologically, 
because  the  outcrops  of  the  strata  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains are  babes  in  age  compared  with  the  igneous  rocks 
of  the  Alleghanies ;  and  the  remains  of  the  extinct 
saurians  and  other  orders,  genera,  and  species  that  scien- 
tists are  digging  out  of  their  hills  and  valleys,  seem  so 
fresh  and  recent  that  hunters  are  still  looking  to  find  in 
distant  and  unexplored  places  some  of  their  surviving 
individuals,  and  are  yet  relating  to  credulous  listeners 
tales  of  supposed  glimpses  of  the  vanished  fauna. 

It  is  old  ethnologically  because  the  oldest  people  now 
living  in  our  country,  the  Pueblos,  there  reside.  How  old 
these  Indian  tribes  may  be  remains  yet  to  be  told.  They 
may  have  traded  with  the  Mound  Builders  when  they 
occupied  the  Mississippi  Valley.  It  is  also  old  in  its  flora, 
because  its  gigantic  sequoias  as  much  out-rank  in  age 
and  size  our  tallest  trees  as  these  latter  do  the  bushes  that 
grow  at  their  feet.  So  immense  are  some  of  these  ancient 
monarchs  that  one  single  tree  built  a  large  church  in  Santa 
Rosa,  California,  from  its  lowest  sill  to  its  topmost  finial, 
and  through  a  cavity  in  the  trunk  of  another,  still  grow- 
ing and  flourishing,  tourists  in  a  "coach  and  six"  daily 
drive  and  have  plenty  of  room  to  spare. 

The  record  of  erosion  that  the  ages  have  made  in  the 
mesozoic  rocks  of  Arizona  and  adjoining  states  would  be 
unbelievable  if  not  demonstrated  by  facts.  For  some  rea- 
son, the  lands  here  do  not  lie  in  rolling  hills,  as  they  do 
north  of  the  Raton  and  east  of  the  Rocky  mountains,  but 
are  found  in  mesa  or  table  land. 

The  most  striking  instance  of  this  erosion  is  the 
Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado  River.  Here  the  river  has 
dug  a  great  ditch,  as  much  larger  than  the  Panama  Canal 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


i«3 


as  the  Panama  Canal  is  greater  than  a  three-foot,  irrigat- 
ing acequia;  so  immense  a  ditch  that  the  people  upon  its 
very  brink  haul  their  water  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
miles  rather  than  raise  it  up  the  cliffs  from  the  river  that 
runs  at  their  feet. 

It  is  a  gigantic  fissure  through  a  great  mesa.  In  look- 
ing across  the  mighty  distorted  space,  the  level  line  of  the 
table-land  on  the  opposite  bank  can  be  seen  thirteen  miles 
away  eonforming  to  the  line  upon  the  side  where  the 
beholder  is  standing.  Between  the  two  mesa  lines  of  level 
table-land  is  this  great  canyon,  thirteen  miles  across,  one 
mile  deep ;  but  not  an  empty  canyon :  it  is  filled  with 
gigantic  forms,  apparently  of  castles,  forts,  ships,  dens, 
domes,  and  grotesque  forms  resembling  animals  that 
might  be  brothers  of  the  extinct  saurians,  or  cousins  of 


Grand  Canyon   from    linn    Point 

The  apparently  little  stream    in   the  foreground  is  the   Colorado 
River,  one   mile   beneath   my  feet  when   this  was  taken 


i&4  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

by-gone  mammoths — all  colored  by  the  varying  hues  of 
the  rainbow-like  strata  through  which  the  river  has  cut  its 
way.  It  is  a  sight  unsurpassed  and  unforgetable  beyond 
degree ;  the  tongue  and  brain  fail  when  asked  to  tell  its 
wonders. 

As  the  weather  was  stormy  when  I  visited  the  canyon 
I  remained  some  days  longer  than  I  had  intended,  because 
I  wanted  to  see  it  in  all  the  glory  of  sunshine  as  well  as 
through  the  mystery  of  fleeting  clouds.  Afterwards  I 
thanked  the  storm,  for  it  showed  me  the  canyon  in  all  its 
glorious  beauty,  and  added  thereto  an  unusual  but  per- 
fectly natural  phenomenon  the  production  of  which  re- 
quires such  unusual  conditions,  that  few  see  it,  and  they 
only  once  in  a  life  time. 

The  environment  necessary  is  a  precipitous  height  of 
half  a  mile  or  more  on  some  mountain  top  or  canyon  side, 
a  rain  cloud  directly  in  front,  and  a  bright  morning  or 
evening  sun  thirty  or  forty  degrees  from  the  horizon  be- 
hind the  observer.  Such  were  the  surroundings  as  I  stood 
with  a  professor  of  a  southwestern  university  at  my  side, 
on  Observation  Point,  a  half  mile  or  more  directly  over 
Bright  Angel  Trail.  The  weather  was  clearing  up  and 
rain  clouds  before  us  were  rolling  through  the  canyon, 
revealing  and  again  blotting  out  the  wondrous  vision  be- 
fore us  as  though  they  were  a  great  curtain  shifted  before 
a  gigantic  stage. 

I  said,  "Professor,  we  must  watch  closely.  We  might 
catch  a  rainbow  down  there  and  that  would  be  the  only 
thing  that  could  possibly  increase  the  magnificence  of  this 
outlook."  I  do  not  know  what  chair  the  professor  occu- 
pied in  his  university,  but  he  was  posted  in  optics  and 
refraction. 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  \\  EST 


185 


He  replied,  "Conditions  are  such  here  that  if  we  should 
catch  a  rainbow,  it  would  he  a  complete  one  (a  full  circle) 
and  our  shadow  ;<'<>it/d  be  in  its  center." 

He  had  hardly  stopped  speaking  when  the  bow  ap- 
peared to  me  .  I  excitedly  exclaimed,  "Professor!  I  see 
a  perfectly  round  rainbow,  and  my  shadow  is  in  the  center 
of  it!    But  where  are  you?" 

He  answered:  "Don't  you  know  that  two  persons  can 
never  see  the  same  rainbow?  I  also  have  one  and  my 
shadow  is  likewise  in  its  center." 

The  scene  lasted  hut  a  moment;  then  the  rain  cloud 
passed  out  of  focus  and  the  rainbow  vanished.  When  it 
had  gone  the  professor  said,  "I  suppose  what  we  have 
just-  seen  accounts  for  the  halo  we  find  drawn  around  the 


View    from    Observation    Point 
'Bright   Anyel   Trail"  is  seen  at  point  marked  X 


1 86  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

saints  of  old ;  some  persons  had  witnessed  what  we  have 
just  viewed,  and  not  knowing  that  it  was  perfectly  natural 
thought  it  a  supernatural  manifestation.'' 

Just  then  the  wife  of  the  professor  came  out  upon  the 
platform  and  turning  to  her,  I  said,  "If  you  had  been  out 
here  a  minute  ago  you  could  have  seen  yourself  with  a 
halo  around  you." 

"But,"  remarked  the  Professor,  "How  much  better  it 
would  be  if  she  could  have  seen  me  surrounded  by  my 
halo." 

The  conclusion  of  the  professor  regarding  the  halo  I 
found  verified  that  very  evening.  The  experience  we  had 
undergone  I  related  to  the  manager  of  the  curio  store  at 
the  canyon,  with  whom  I  had  become  acquainted.  He 
listened  with  much  surprise  and  great  interest  until  I  was 
through,  and  then  said,  "Why,  what  you  have  witnessed, 
comes  to  us  here  as  a  legend  of  what  a  Navajo  boy  once 
saw  there."  From  that  occurrence,  the  Bright  Angel  Trail 
directly  below  has  been  named. 

Considering  the  stupendous  work  that  nature  has  done 
here,  one  would  think  it  impossible  for  the  water  to  dis- 
play any  greater  evidence  of  its  erosive  power;  but  this 
exhibition  is  small  compared  with  what  it  has  performed 
almost  unnoticed  elsewhere.  Here  the  energy  is  more 
marked,  because  it  has  been  confined  to  a  restricted  dis- 
trict only  thirteen  miles  wide ;  here  a  great  gash  has  been 
ploughed  through  a  broad  mesa.  Elsewhere  in  many 
places  the  action  has  been  reversed;  the  whole  country 
has  been  swept  away,  hundreds  of  feet  deep,  leaving  only 
here  and  there  mesas  or  high  tables,  small  and  great,  to 
show  the  altitude  at  which  the  whole  surrounding  country 
had  at  sometime  lain. 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  187 

Such  conditions  may  be  found  at  Adamana,  where  the 
government  reservation  for  the  protection  of  a  petrified 
forest  and  painted  desert  is  located.  There,  geologists 
and  scientific  men  have  searched  the  rocks,  and  if  they 
have  read  them  aright,  they  tell  a  story  more  wonderful 
than  any  Arabian  Nights'  Tale.  There,  in  the  Mesozoic 
Age,  flourished  a  grove  of  carboniferous  flora,  not  less 
than  twelve  thousand  square  miles  in  extent.  Then  came 
some  mighty  force  which  levelled  the  trees  to  the  ground 
and  in  places  buried  them  in  clay. 

Ages  upon-  ages  passed.  The  winds  or  the  waves 
uncovered  them,  and  behold  a  miracle !  The  trees  had  not 
decayed,  nor  turned  to  coal  as  usual ;  they  had  turned  to 
jewels,  precious  stones  such  as  Shah  Jehan  built  into  the 
finest,  ornamental  parts  of  Taj  Mahal — the  gem  of  the 
world's  construction.  The  silex  in  the  clay  had  changed 
the  wood  of  the  trees  into  "agate,  jasper,  chalcedony,  opal, 


Adamana  Reservation 


i88 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


and  other  silicates."  But  the  change  had  left  record  of  the 
forms  of  the  trees,  even  to  the  bark  that  covered  them, 
and  also  the  annual  ring  growths  of  the  exogens,  marked 
with  all  of  the  colors  of  the  rainbow. 

They  are  beautiful  and  will  take  a  polish  as  fine  as 
a  diamond.  No  wonder  that  a  prominent  jeweler  of  one 
of  our  largest  cities  was  said  to  have  tried  to  get  away 
with  a  load  to  make  into  jewels  for  his  "Four  Hundred," 
but  was  stopped  by  the  custodian.  I  saw  the  load  where 
they  told  me  he  had  dropped  it,  and  the  specimens  there 
shown  were  no  more  beautiful  than  train  Loads  that  were 
left. 

The  erosion  did  not  cease  with  the  uncovering  of  the 
trees,  but  continued,  until  now  we  find  upon  the  tops  of 
the  high  mesa  logs  in  full  length,  some  absolutely  un- 
broken, lying  where  they  fell  millions  of  years  ago ;  while 


Petrified  Forest  at  Adam  ana 
Petrified  Log  Bridge   over  Chasm 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


189 


on  the  lower  mesa  many,  many  feet  below  them,  where 
the  original  surrounding  earth  has  been  swept  away  to  its 
present  depth,  the  ground  is  covered  with  chips  and 
pieces  of  trees,  from  the  size  of  a  thumb-nail  up  to  pieces 
of  logs  five  or  six  feet  in  diameter,  that  have  fallen  from 
the  upper  to  the  lower  level  as  the  earth  was  swept  from 
beneath  them. 

I  asked  the  custodian  of  the  reservation  what  the 
extent  of  these  petrified-forest-covered  lands  was.  He 
said  that  he  had  traveled  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
miles  north,  eighty  miles  east,  forty-five  miles  south  and 
thirty  miles  west,  and  he  had  seen  petrified  trees,  in 
places,  in  all  that  scope  of  country — how  much  farther 
they  extended  he  could  not  say. 


Petrified  Logs  Lying  where  they   Fell  Ages   Ago 
Note  the  typical  manner  of  their  breaking  into  sections 


igo  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

I  asked  him  further,  ''Should  all  these  detached 
forests  be  consolidated  into  one  grove,  what  would,  in 
your  opinion  be  its  size?" 

He  replied :  "Of  course,  any  such  estimate  would  be 
largely  a  guess ;  but  I  will  make  the  conservative  one  that 
it  would  not  be  less  than  a  hundred  square  miles." 

Just  think  of  it !  A  hundred  square  miles  of  nature's 
jewelry-shop  where  precious  stones  lie  thick  on  the 
ground  for  any  to  come  and  take  at  will,  provided  they 
do  not  attempt  to  carry  more  than  five  pounds.  Should 
they  attempt  such  prohibited  appropriation,  an  unpleasant 
meeting  with  the  custodian  or  his  marshal  might  result. 

Tall  mesas,  large  and  small,  abound  through  this  re- 
gion in  all  directions.  Acoma,  one  of  the  oldest  pueblos 
of  the  Indians,  is  built  upon  one.  This  table  is  about 
seventy  acres  in  extent,  and  stands  over  three  hundred 
feet  high ;  there  it  marks  the  former  level  of  the  whole 
plain.  The  sides  are  so  steep  that  the  summit  is  accessible 
only  by  the  aid  of  ladders  or  of  steps  cut  in  the  cliff. 

Not  far  from  Acoma  lies  the  "Enchanted  Mesa," 
which  until  lately  was  considered  unsurmountable.  I 
was  told  while  there  that  a  party  recently  had  come  from 
the  East  properly  equipped,  and  with  the  express  purpose 
of  climbing  to  its  top.  Among  other  things,  they  brought 
from  a  life  saving  station  a  gun  whose  projectile  carried 
a  line.  With  the  aid  of  this  gun,  and  other  appliances, 
with  much  work  and  many  calculations,  they  at  last 
reached  the  summit  of  the  table-land.  To  their  chagrin 
they  found  the  Indians  had  been  there  perhaps  centuries 
before  them. 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


191 


One  thing  our  Southwestern  citizens  are  doing  that  I 
believe  to  be  highly  commendable.  It  is  a  work  which 
will  for  all  time  make  their  part  of  the  country  dis- 
tinctive and  interesting.  They  are  creating  new  styles  of 
architecture,  based  upon  the  Pueblo  Indian  form  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  style  of  the  Mission  Fathers  and  their 
followers  on  the  other.  These  two  new  styles  are  named 
the  "Hopi"  for  the  former  and  the  "Mission"  the  latter. 
(See  pp.  68,  70,  74.) 

Following  and  modifying  these  old  forms  are  a  new 
business  block  in  Albuquerque,  the  "Hokona"  on  the 
campus  of  the  University  of  New  Mexico,  and  many 
other  buildings  in  our  southwestern  cities.  This  Hokona 
is  representative  of  all  the  buildings  of  the  University 
mentioned,   even  the   Main   Edifice   is  quite   as   strongly 


FTokona,   University  of  New  Mexico 


IQ2 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


Fine  Art  Building  at  Santa  Fe 

/.    Reproduction  of  the  Indian  Cathedral  of  Acoma 

2.    Same  of  Santa  Ana 

3.    Same  of  Laguna 


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Laguna  Corner  of  Above 

/w  Picture   of   Original  Building  see  Page  70 

The   Indians  did  the  Better   Work 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  193 

Hopi  in  form  as  the  one  photographed.  Hokona  in  Indian 
language  means  "Squaws'  House,"  so  of  course  this 
building  is  the  girls'  dormitory. 

As  the  basis  of  the  Mission  style,  is  presented  the 
Indian  cathedral  at  Laguna  and  the  replica,  or  copy,  of 
the  cathedral  at  Acoma  built  as  part  of  the  fine  art 
building  at  Santa  Fe.  Copying  the  style  of  these  old 
constructions  there  has  been  built,  among  many  others  of 
like  orders,  the  new  government  land  office  in  Santa  Fe 
and  the  hotel  Alvarado  and  railroad  station  at 
Albuquerque. 


1  in  ■'•'I'li.i'ij 

w,3\  wi'i 


Business  Block,  Albuquerque 
Hopi  Style 


194 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


Hotel  and  Depot  at  Albuquerque 
Mission  Style 


Land  Office  at  Santa  Fe 
Mission    Style 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  195 

Our  friends  of  Santa  Fe  have  gone  still  further  in 
this  direction :  they  have  taken  both  forms  of  architecture 
and  combined  them  into  one,  creating  the  "Santa  Fe 
style."  Here  is  shown  a  new  Santa  Fe  dwelling  house 
constructed  in  this  style  and  furnished  according  to  the 
requirements  of  the  best  society  of  the  city;  also  a  rep- 
resentation of  the  "Elks'  Home"  of  the  same  place,  which 
shows  what  the  style  can  develop  when  used  upon  a 
public  building.  I  think  it  is  demonstrated  already  that 
we  are  to  have,  at  least  in  our  West,  a  new  and  valuable 
style  of  architecture,  and  one  that  is  distinctively  Amer- 
ican. 

Another  pecuilarity  of  this  great  Southwest  is  the  re- 
fraction of  light  in  this  nearly  rainless  country.  It  often 
presents  optical  illusions  of  unexpected  and  perplexing 
character.  I  do  not  mean  that  form  of  mirage  which 
consists  in  seeing  things  that  do  not  exist :  I  have  not  seen 
that  and  do  not  believe  in  it.  I  mean  the  appearance  of 
things  that  do  exist,  but  in  an  unusual  and  seemingly  im- 
possible manner.  An  example  of  this  is  the  plain  view  of 
objects  that  really  lie  below  the  horizon  and  should  by 
natural  law  be  hidden  by  the  curvature  of  the  earth. 
Another  is  the  appearance  of  objects  as  near  at  hand  when 
in  reality  they  are  far  distant. 

A  story,  venerable  in  the  mountains,  so  clearly  illus- 
trates what  I  mean  that  I  will  tell  it,  hoping  its  age  is  so 
great  it  will  be  new  to  some.  An  English  tourist,  stop- 
ping at  Denver,  one  morning  saw  the  mountains  ap- 
parently so  close  and  inviting  that  he  suggested  to  a 
friend  of  that  city  that  they  walk  over  and  back  before 
dinner.    The  Denver  friend,  knowing  the  hills  were  forty 


ig6 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


The   "Santa   Fe   Style''' 
Hopi  and  Mission  Styles  combined. 
A   Residence   of  Santa  Fe's  Exclusive  "Four  Hundred' 


'Santa  Fe  Style"  for  Public  Buildings 
The  Elks'  House  at  Santa  Fe 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  197 

miles  away  but  seeing  some  fun,  agreed.  After  they  had 
walked  a  couple  of  hours  the  Englishman  began  to  get 
uneasy,  the  mountains  were  no  nearer;  another  hour, 
and  he  was  quite  disturbed — they  were  as  far  away  as 
ever;  one  more  hour,  and  they  came  to  an  irrigating 
acequia  about  two  feet  across.  He  sat  down,  pulled  off 
his  shoes  and  stockings  and  was  rolling  up  his  trousers 
when  his  friend  said,  "What  are  you  doing?" 

The  tourist  answered,  "I  want  to  get  through  that 
stream." 

"Why  don't  you  step  over  it?"  the  Denverite  sug- 
gested. 

"Ah!  said  the  Englishman,  "What  do  I  know  about 
distances  in  your  blasted  country?" 


Scandia   Mountain   near  Albuquerque 

Refraction   makes   them  seem   to   the   eyes   to   reach    the   height 

of  the  mark  half  way  between   the  horizon  and  the  top 

of  the  picture 


198  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

He  did  not  know  anything  if  he  trusted  to  sight,  and 
the  longer  one  stays  in  that  country  the  less  reliance  he 
places  on  that  faculty  for  judging  distances.  A  peculiar 
fact  about  this  illusion,  which  I  would  not  believe  until 
repeated  trials  had  convinced  me  of  its  truth,  is  that  it 
deceives  the  eye,  but  it  cannot  fool  the  camera. 

To  illustrate  what  I  mean,  look  at  the  photograph  I 
present  showing  the  New  Mexico  camp  for  war  recruits. 
In  the  background  the  Scandia  Mountains  show  dimly 
and  low  down  in  the  distance.  To  the  eye,  the  range 
looms  up  apparently  thirty  degrees  in  the  firmament,  as 
high  as  the  mark  shown  in  the  sky,  and  the  groves,  cliffs, 
canyons,  snowbanks,  and  whole  mountain  scenery  are  so 
distinctly  plain  that  one  might  expect  to  reach  them  in  an 
hour  or  two  of  walking.  The  camera  alone  refused  to 
be  misled ;  I  have  tried  many  times,  but  never  secured 
any  better  result  than  here  shown.  I  do  not  understand 
it ;  I  pass  it  along  to  anyone  who  knows  the  answer  to 
the  riddle. 

My  experience  of  over  three-quarters  of  a  century 
has  shown  that  prophets  here  in  the  West  have  had  a 
very  hard  time,  and  seem  to  have  been  born  chiefly  for 
the  purpose  of  being  discredited.  Yet  with  their  dire 
disaster  in  plain  view,  I  want  to  foretell  one  thing — it  is 
this :  the  plebeian,  degraded,  much-despised,  Indian-made 
adobe  is  bound  to  be  the  principal  building  material  of 
arid  America,  not  only  for  dwellings  but  also  for  public 
buildings.  Why  should  it  not  be?  It  is  cheap,  simply 
mud  and  straw  properly  mixed  and  sun  baked.  It  is 
durable ;  note  the  buildings  that  have  stood  for  centuries 
in  the  Southwest.  (See  also  pages  68  and  70.)  If  it  is 
kept  with  a  dry  roof  above,  and  occasionally  plastered 


Till-;  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST 


iycj 


with  a  thin  coat  of  the  original  material  on  the  outside, 
colored  to  suit  one's  fancy,  it  is  as  good  and  looks  as  well 
at  the  end  of  a  century  of  its  life  as  at  its  commence- 
ment. An  adobe  house  is  cool  in  summer  and  warm  in 
winter.  Its  outer  walls  may  be  marked  and  colored  so 
as  to  present  as  fine  an  appearance  as  anything  that  can 
be  found.  What  more  can  be  asked  of  any  building  ma- 
terial ?  Some  have  already  answered  that  question  in  the 
negative — more  will  follow,  and  the  guess  I  leave  is,  that 
the  very  large  majority,  even  of  Americans,  will  finally 
adopt  it. 

The  climate  of  arid  America  is  so  pleasant  and  beauti- 
ful that  land-boomers  in  that  country  have,  for  lo  these 
many  years,  been  selling  Eastern  innocents  "climate  by 
the  acre,"  meaning  thereby  that  many  a  poor  fellow  who 
has  bought  a  ranch  of  these  gentlemen  without  proper 


Recent  Pueblo  Houses,  San  Domingo,  New  Mexico 
Adobe 


200  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

investigation  ultimately  found  that  climate  was  the  only 
thing  of  real  value  he  had  purchased.  It  is  no  idle  boast 
of  the  far-west  people  that  the  dryness  of  the  air  de- 
creases the  extreme  heat  in  summer  and  lessens  the  in- 
tense cold  in  winter.  It  is  the  moisture  in  the  air  that  in 
cold  weather  penetrates  the  clothing  and  chills  the  body, 
and  the  humidity  of  hot  days  that  prostrates  and  threatens 
sunstroke. 

I  can  testify  personally  in  this  case.  In  the  winter  of 
191 7,  when  the  frost  ruined  the  groves  and  gardens  of 
Florida,  the  temperature  after  the  sun  rose  was  over 
thirty-two  degrees,  and  yet  with  a  heavy  overcoat  I  was 
compelled  to  seek  a  fire  to  keep  warm.  The  next  winter, 
in  New  Mexico,  I  walked  out  frequently  thinking  it  a 
warm  morning,  and  passing  where  water  was  standing,  I 
would,  to  my  surprise,  find  it  frozen.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  I  was  driving  oxen  on  the  plain  in  summer,  I  have 
experienced  days  when  the  heat  did  not  seem  oppressive, 
and  yet  the  chains  that  had  lain  on  the  ground  in  the  sun 
were  so  hot  they  could  not  easily  be  handled  without 
gloves. 

The  Government  has  taken  this  matter  under  observa- 
tion. An  instrument  has  been  installed  that  is  supposed 
to  register  the  difference  between  real  and  apparent  heat 
and  cold.  The  observer  has  reported  that  there  may  be 
a  difference  between  the  two  of  about  forty  degrees.  This 
means  that  a  man  at  Santa  Fe,  in  winter,  with  the  ther- 
mometer registering  zero,  would  not  feel  the  cold  more 
than  a  man  in  Chicago  at  forty  degrees  above.  And  per 
contra,   a   person   in    summer   at   New   York,   with   the 


THE  SETTLING  OE  THE  WEST  201 

thermometer  at  seventy  degrees,  would  suffer  as  much 
from  heat  as  one  in  Arizona  would  at  one  hundred  and 
ten. 

Whether  further  observations  will  sustain  this  seem- 
ingly extreme  statement  remains  to  be  seen.  But  this  is 
true :  although  the  thermometer  in  the  far  Southwest  fre- 
quently goes  on  a  rampage  and  shows  a  real  heat  of  much 
above  a  hundred  degrees,  still,  the  apparent  heat  is  so  low 
that  sunstrokes  are  unknown  there,  while  eighty  or  ninety 
is  all  that  New  York  or  Chicago  can  possibly  stand  with- 
out such  casualties. 

The  great  thing  that  our  Westerners  rely  upon  to 
make  their  half  of  the  nation  more  valuable  than  the 
East,  is  spelled  I-r-r-i-g-a-t-i-o-n,  and  many  of  the 
enthusiasts  talk  of  it  as  some  new  thing.  Why,  bless  your 
heart !  It  is  the  oldest  thing  in  America ;  the  Spaniards 
personally  testified  to  its  presence  on  the  Rio  Grande 
River  nearly  a  century  before  the  Pilgrims  landed  on 
Plymouth  Rock;  C.  F.  Lummis  gives  us  good  reason 
for  believing  that  the  Quere  Indians  were  flooding  their 
fields  on  the  Rio  de  los  Frijoles  about  the  time  Julius 
Caesar  was  stirring  up  trouble  with  the  Gauls ;  and  from 
the  old,  forgotten,  pre-historic,  and  even  pre-legendary 
irrigation  works  that  are  found  where  our  new  systems 
are  being  installed,  it  is  quite  possible  that  there  may  have 
been  corn  in  Arizona  that  Joseph  failed  to  buy  when  he 
ran  his  great  corner  in  grain  in  Egypt. 

The  Indians  taught  the  Mexicans  their  system  of 
simply  diverting  the  flow  of  the  river  upon  the  land. 
Then  came  the  Americans,  who  improved  upon  it  by 
building  rude  dams  to  raise  the  head  of  water  to  cover 
new  territory;  afterwards  followed  irrigation  companies, 


202  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

more  or  less  successful,  which  atempted  not  only  to  raise 
the  level  of  the  waters,  but  also  to  conserve  them  for  un- 
certain seasons.  Finally  appeared  Uncle  Sam,  who  took 
hold  of  the  matter  in  a  systematic  and  scientific  way. 

The  Government  is  now  installing  great  projects  like 
the  one  at  Salt  River.  There  stands  the  Roosevelt  Dam, 
its  summit  two  hundred  and  forty  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  river  at  its  feet.  With  its  mighty  strength  it  holds 
back  the  waters  of  a  reservoir  covering  sixteen  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  thirty-two  acres.  This  is  expected  to 
supply  two  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land  throughout 
the  dryest  season.  This  project  is  only  one  of  the  twenty- 
five  such,  under  consideration  or  completed,  which  Uncle 
Sam  is  building.  Taken  all  together  they  will  supply 
water  for  over  two  million  acres.  But  this  is  only  a 
small  part  of  the  acreage  under  ditch  in  the  seventeen 
states  that  are  on  the  arid  list.  There  was  in  1910  a 
total  of  thirteen  million  seven  hundred  and  thirty-eight 
thousand  four  hundred  and  eighty-five  acres  under  irriga- 
tion. This  is  about  one  and  two-tenths  per  cent  of  the 
area  of  the  states  involved,  but  the  amount  so  cultivated 
is  annually  increasing. 

Irrigation  is  doing  a  great  thing  for  our  southwestern 
friends ;  but  when  they,  as  Smythe  did  in  California,  com- 
pute the  population  of  some  of  their  irrigated  valleys  as 
a  basis,  and  then  extend  that  ratio  all  over  their  state, 
irrespective  of  its  agricultural  possibilities,  thereby  reach- 
ing an  estimated  future  census  exceeding  the  people  con- 
tained in  France,  they  are  sure  to  come  out  with  a  wrong 
conclusion.     If  that  calculation  can  be  made  good,  and 


THE  SETTLING  OE  THE  WEST  203 

if  the  other  dry  states  can  do  the  same,  then  we,  who 
live  east  of  the  ninety-seventh  meridian,  must  look  to  the 
West  and  take  off  our  hats. 

In  reaching  these  optimistic  conclusions  I  am  certain 
they  have  overlooked  several  points.  First,  fertility  of 
soil ;  second,  water  supply ;  third,  the  principal  cause  of 
California's  growth.  Regarding  fertility,  though  it  is  true 
that  much  of  the  western  soil,  especially  in  the  valleys, 
is  very  productive  when  once  it  is  watered,  still  this  con- 
dition is  by  no  means  as  general  as  they  would  have  us 
believe.  I  examined  a  report  of  the  soil  survey  of  the 
Rio  Grande  River  Valley  near  Albuquerque,  and  I  was 
surprised  at  the  great  variety  and  wide  range  in  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  soils  shown,  even  here.  In  places  were 
spots  of  great  fertility,  but  in  close  proximity  were  others 
almost  sterile. 


The  Rio   Grande  River  at  Albuquerque 


204  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  surveyors  had,  however,  been  kind  to  the  real 
estate  interest  of  the  valley,  and  had  marked  nothing  as 
poor  or  worthless.  Their  lowest  grade  was  in  effect  indi- 
cated as  "productive,  if  supplied  with  fertilizers  and 
water."  A  sand  hill  could  be  truly  so  marked.  As  I  was 
curious  to  see  what  kind  of  soil  would  bear  that  designa- 
tion, I  hunted  up  one  location  so  marked,  and  found  it 
was  composed  entirely,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  of  coarse 
gravel  and  small  water- washed  stones.  Such  soil  is  rare 
in  the  valleys,  but  away  from  the  streams  it  is  more 
abundant.  In  places  there  are  hundreds  of  square  miles 
either  too  sterile  or  too  rough  for  cultivation  of  any  kind, 
even  if  it  had  unlimited  water. 

The  water  supply,  I  think,  cannot  sufficiently  moisten 
even  the  lands  that  are  fertile  and  sufficiently  level  for 
irrigation.  When  Los  Angeles  is  compelled  to  go  three 
hundred  miles  for  water,  and  then  to  take  it  away  from 
those  who  need  it,  and  San  Francisco  is  forced  to  appear 
before  Congress  and  say  that  for  supply  she  must  have 
the  waters  of  California's  pride,  the  Yosemite  Valley, 
where  will  the  moisture  come  from  to  wet  the  great  San 
Joaquin  and  other  valleys? 

I  know  the  answer  given  to  that  question — any  real 
estate  man  on  Broadway  Street  in  Los  Angeles  will  not 
only  tell  it  to  you,  but  demonstrate  it.  It  is  this:  "Buy 
five  or  ten  acres  of  land  of  us  (more  if  you  want),  then 
install  a  pumping  outfit  upon  it  sufficient  for  a  small  city, 
and  the  generous,  bountiful,  never  failing  under-flow  will 
water  your  land  and  make  you  rich."  This  may  all  be 
true,  but  like  Mark  Twain  in  another  matter,  "I  am  har- 
rassed  by  doubts."  Government  officials  report  that  the 
flowing  wells  of  Southern  California  and  the  Pecos  Val- 


THE  SETTLING  OF  THE  WEST  205 

ley  have  already  reduced  this  underflow  so  much  that 
many  have  stopped  running,  and  "conditions  indicate  that 
the  quantity  of  water  that  can  be  taken  from  an  under- 
ground source  is  as  definitely  limited  as  that  which  can 
be  taken  from  the  streams." 

Our  trans-mountain  friends,  when  boasting  of  the  re- 
markable strides  their  states  have  made,  are  apt  to  forget 
that  the  greater  part  of  the  money  which  has  pushed  their 
progress  was  made  in  the  disdained  East.  When  they 
point  out  a  magnificent  valley  filled  with  beautiful  homes, 
made  glorious  by  blooming  flowers  and  golden  fruits, 
they  are  apt  to  infer,  if  not  positively  state,  that  these 
are  the  results  of  fruit  growing  in  their  locality,  when,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  the  proceeds  of  the  corn  and 
cereals  of  Eastern  States. 

It  is  certain  a  large,  very  large,  proportion  of  those 
who  live  in  California,  earned  their  money  in  the  East, 
and  are  spending  it  in  their  new  homes.  The  beautiful 
residences  in  the  grand  valleys  were  built  and  are  kept  up, 
not  by  their  citrus  groves,  but  by  the  annual  flow  of 
money  over  the  Rocky  Mountains,  which,  should  it  be 
stopped,  would  cause  their  homes  to  be  suddenly  closed, 
and  a  great  emigration  toward  the  rising  sun  would  be 
the  immediate  result. 

California  may  sometime  have  the  thirty-eight  mil- 
lion people,  that  Smythe  predicts  for  her,  and  the  other 
arid  states  in  like  proportion,  but  when  they  achieve  that 
result,  the  States  east  of  the  ninety-seventh  meridian  will 
have  to  feed  and  clothe  them. 

While  the  West  has  been  doing  all  these  things,  the 
East  has  been  a  most  worthy  team-mate  of  the  West  in 


206  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  great  march  of  progress.  What  some  cities  of  the 
East  have  achieved  in  population  is  only  an  index  of  her 
accomplishments  everywhere.  When  I  was  born  in  1840 
there  resided  in  New  York  City  391,144  people;  now  it 
has  over  5,000,000.  Buffalo  had  18,213;  now,  500,000. 
New  York  State,  2,428,921 ;  now  10,000,000.  Cleveland 
6,048;  now  700,000. 

When  my  life  began,  the  population  of  the  whole 
United  States  was  17,069,453,  and  its  center  was  sixteen 
miles  south  of  Clarksburg,  West  Virginia.  While  I  am 
still  living  and  vigorous,  that  center  has  moved  west  to 
Whitehall,  Indiana,  and  the  numbers  have  increased 
about  seven  hundred  per  cent,  being  now  more  than  a 
hundred  million,  and  no  man  can  predict  the  future. 

Before  another  centennial  of  our  history  shall  come, 
may  not  Andrew  Carnegie's  apostrophe  to  the  United 
States  become  as  true  in  his  prophecy  as  in  his  history? 
"In  1850  she  passed  Austria;  in  i860  it  was  her  Mother 
Land  to  whom  she  held  out  her  hand  lovingly  as  she 
swept  by;  in  1870  she  overtook  and  passed  France;  in 
1880  she  outstripped  the  German  Empire,  and  now,  in 
1890,  she  is  left  without  a  competitor  to  contend  with, 
except  giant  Russia — all  others  she  has  left  behind. 
Another  decade,  and  the  sound  of  the  rushing  Republic 
close  behind  will  astonish  even  Russia  with  its  eighty- 
six  millions  in  Europe;  yet  another  decade,  and  it,  too, 
like  all  the  rest,  will  fall  behind  to  watch  for  a  time,  the 
new  nation  in  advance,  until  it  forges  so  far  forward  as 
to  pass  beyond  her  ken,  when  five  hundred  millions,  every 
one  an  American,  and  all  boasting  a  common  citizenship, 
will  dominate  the  world — for  the  world's  good." 


PART    III 


THE 
FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  209 

CHAPTER  XII 
LIKE  TOPSY,   SLAVERY  "JUST  GROWED." 

The  first  public  meeting  I  can  remember  to  have  at- 
tended was  •  in  the  church  building  of  my  native  New 
England  village.  There  I  received  my  first  conception  of 
slavery.  It  was  not  a  bright  angel  that  enlightened  me, 
but  a  very  black,  runaway  negro  who  brought  the  mes- 
sage and  appealed  for  sympathy  and  aid.  It  was  a  long 
tale  of  cruelty  and  wrong  he  related,  and  as  proof  of  his 
truthfulness  he  presented  the  unimpeachable  voucher 
of  his  own  torn  and  lash-scarred  back. 

Then  I  wondered  how,  and  I  am  still  questioning  why, 
the  Institution  of  slavery,  like  the  old  man  of  the  sea 
upon  Sindbad  the  Sailor,  should  have  settled  itself  upon 
the  free  nation  and  there  clung  until  four  years  of  Civil 
War  loosened  its  hold  and  disposed  of  it  forever. 

Is  it  a  mistake  that  I  capitalized  the  word  Institution ? 
I  think  not,  because  I  believe  it  to  have  been  an  entity  that 
demanded  personification.  It  was  greater,  more  power- 
ful, more  lasting  than  slavery  itself  or  the  laws  therewith 
connected.  Slavery  is  dead,  buried,  and  has  no  mourners 
even  among  those  who  controlled  it;  the  laws  it  enacted 
are  now  mere  forceless  words  upon  the  obsolete  statutes 
where  printed,  but  the  unwritten  customs,  practices,  and 
prejudices  which  the  Institution  bred,  still  survive  to 
annoy,  perplex  and  curse,  equally  the  white  man  and  the 
black,  both  North  and  South. 

Northerners  have  written  of  this  black  peril  from 
their  standpoint;  Southerners,  from  their  view  of  the 
Institution,     lioth  have  doubtless  been  honest  and  have 


210  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

told  the  truth  as  they  found  it  and  understood  it,  but 
they  have  been  like  witnesses  in  court.  There  the  law 
and  the  judge,  realizing  the  limitations  of  human  and 
mental  capacity,  have  prescribed  what  the  oath  regard- 
ing the  truth  shall  be.  The  correct  formula,  as  I  have 
numberless  times  administered  it,  is,  "You  do  solemnly 
swear  that  the  evidence  you  may  give  in  the  cause  now 
pending  shall  be  the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth." 
No  thoughtful  judge,  or  careful  clerk,  would  swear  wit- 
nesses, as  is  sometimes  done,  to  "tell  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,"  because  it  is  impossible 
to  comply  with  such  an  oath.  No  one  knows  the  whole 
truth  about  insignificant  affairs;  therefore  no  person 
could  possess  such  unattainable  knowledge  about  the 
great  question  of  slavery. 

But  some  writers,  I  fear,  have  not  tried  to  tell  all  the 
truth  they  knew.  Like  lawyers  in  court,  many  have 
purposely  omitted  from  their  briefs  facts  and  precedents 
that  did  not  help  to  prove  their  side  of  the  case — a  ten- 
dency always  constant,  tempting  and  overpowering  to  a 
prejudiced  mind.  I  think  I  have  had  unusual  opportun- 
ities to  see  both  sides  of  this  matter,  and  I  purpose  to 
construct  no  brief  for  either  side  of  the  case.  Old  age, 
and  friendly  relations  with  the  Southern  men  I  once  so 
honestly  fought  during  the  Civil  War,  have  obliterated 
my  prejudices;  contact  and  conversation  with  ex-slave- 
holders and  ex-slaves  in  every  state  of  the  old  South 
since  that  event,  have  taught  me  much.  What  I  may 
here  state  shall  be  written,  so  far  as  in  me  lies,  "with 
charity  for  all,  with  malice  toward  none,"  and  will  ap- 
proach as  nearly  as  can  be  that  impossible  trinity,  "the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth." 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  211 

The  common  law  of  England  was  the  legal  heritage 
of  all  the  colonies  from  that  country,  and  as  that  law 
knew  no  chattel  slavery,  nor  villeinage,  lawyers  and  courts 
have  many  times  taken  the  position  that  slavery  could  not 
exist  in  this  country  except  by  virtue  of,  and  in  con- 
formity to,  statutory  law.  Upon  this  position  Lincoln 
stood,  and  it  must  be  legally  correct,  though  it  sometimes 
seems  to  be  historically  wrong. 

Our  "Magna  Charta,"  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  is  strongly  illustrative  of  this  fact.  Even  though 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  did  stigmatize  it  as  a  "Covenant 
with  death  and  an  agreement  with  hell,"  and  burned  it 
in  public,  still,  as  I  read  that  document,  there  is  no  word 
from  its  beginning  to  its  close  that  establishes  slavery. 
It  does,  however,  recognise  the  Institution  under  the 
term  "three-fifths  of  all  other  persons,"  and  later  Con- 
gress passed  laws  regulating  it ;  but  in  no  place,  so  far  as 
I  can  find,  in  the  Constitution  itself  or  in  the  session  laws 
following,  is  there  any  law  establishing  it. 

What  is  true  of  the  Government  at  Washington,  so  far 
as  I  can  learn,  is  also  true  of  the  individual  states  North 
and  South.  Slavery  was  a  fact  that,  like  Topsy,  "Just 
growed  up"  until  legal  action  regarding  it  was  necessary. 
Then  it  was  recognized  and  regulated  in  some  states,  and 
discarded  and  made  illegal  in  others,  as  financial  interests 
and  modes  of  thought  dictated. 

The  sociological  anomaly  of  a  great  slave  Institution 
growing  up  among,  and  attaching  itself  to  a  free  people, 
free  by  their  fundamental  law,  free  by  all  traditions  of 
their  ancestors,  and  free  by  the  facts  of  their  immigra- 
tion and  settlement,  is  to  me  an  astonishing  anti-climax 


212  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

to  the  hopes  and  aspirations  of  those  who  fought  the 
primitive  wilderness  and  laid  the  foundations  of  our  re- 
public. 

To  my  mind,  the  reading  of  the  foregoing  riddle  is 
something  as  follows.  Although  the  laws  of  England 
knew  not  chattel  slavery  nor  villeinage,  they  did  recog- 
nize apprenticeships  and  servants ;  convicts  and  redemp- 
tioners  might  even  be  bought  and  sold  for  service  for 
terms  of  years.  Should  one  care  to  examine  the  gen- 
ealogy of  those  whose  ancestors  settled  New  England  or 
Jamestown,  he  may  find  the  record  of  the  time  when 
the  persons  in  question  came  to  the  colony,  and  then  the 
record  some  years  later  is  likely  to  read,  "Freeman 
in...."  This  lapse  of  time,  before  the  immigrant  be- 
came entitled  to  full  citizenship,  might  be  for  various 
limitations :  under-age,  non-church  membership,  and  like 
reasons,  but  the  main  deficiency  was  likely  to  be  because 
he  was  a  redemptioner,  a  man  who  had  not  yet  worked 
out  his  term  of  service  for  his  immigration  expenses  and 
was  still  a  quasi-slave  until  he  was  declared  a  freeman. 

The  first  negroes  brought  to  the  colonies  were  sold  in 
Virginia,  as  recorded  by  John  Rolfe,  in  August  1619, 
when,  "a  Dutch  Man  of  War  sold  us  twenty  nigars." 
Now  under  the  laws  of  England,  and  therefore  of 
Virginia,  these  "twenty  nigars"  could  not  have  been 
slaves ;  the  English  common  law  would  not  permit  it  ; 
they  should  have  been,  and  were  so  considered  by  some, 
redemptioners,  and  entitled  to  freedom  when  they  had 
worked  out  the  cost  of  their  purchase.  Some  such 
negroes. did  establish  that  fact  in  law  by  going  into  court 
upon  a  "Quantum  meruit"  plea  for  services  rendered, 
and  won  their  liberty.     But  such  cases,  where  negroes 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  213 

proved  their  equity,  were  very  few.  Gradually  the 
planters  and  owners  of  slaves,  North  and  South,  forgot 
the  black  man's  equity ;  he  did  not  fight  for  his  right  and 
it  lapsed,  and  he  became  by  custom  and  prescription,  a 
hereditary  slave.  Then  came  statutes  regulating  and 
recognizing  such  bondage,  and  the  fact  of  slavery  was 
established. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  black  man's  bondage  there 
was  no  question  of  sectionalism.  North  and  South  were 
equally  committed  to  the  same  error.  In  1708,  there  were 
four  hundred  slaves  in  Puritan  Boston.  It  was  the  act 
of  a  slave  that  infuriated  the  British  soldiers  to  the  Bos- 
ton Massacre ;  and  Crispus  Attucks,  a  mulatto  slave,  was 
one  of  the  five  persons  who  then  and  there  lost  their  lives, 

'When  I  was  in  the  South  with  the  Northern  Army 
during  the  Civil  War,  the  Southerners  used  to  say  to 
me,  "You  uns  ought  not  to  blame  we  uns  for  slavery, 
because  you  uns  caught  the  slaves  and  sold  them  to  we 
uns."  At  that  time  I  resented  the  charge  as  being  untrue, 
but  now  I  know  that  the  South  had  few  ships  and  fewer 
sailors,  and  that  our  enterprising  Yankee  skippers  could 
not  withstand  the  tempting  risks  and  rich  returns  the 
African  slave  trade  rendered  before  1808,  and  were  smart 
enough  and  quick  enough  to  secure  at  least  their  share  of 
the  ill-gotten  gains.  The  negroes  scattered  through  the 
New  England  states  are  probably  the  remains  of  cargoes, 
the  bulk  of  which  had  been  disposed  of  elsewhere.  So 
far  as  the  introduction  of  slavery  is  concerned,  the  North 
is  equally  guilty  with  the  South.  In  this  matter,  "pot 
can't  call  kettle  black." 


2i4  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

During  these  early  years,  there  was  also  very  little 
or  no  debate  of  right  and  wrong  concerning  slavery.  It 
was  purely  an  economic  question,  "Does  it  pay?"  If 
there  was  a  moral  and  religious  view  at  all,  the  Southern 
ideal  prevailed  everywhere,  that  it  was  a  missionary 
work,  and  a  fulfilment  of  divine  command,  when  negroes 
were  brought  from  their  state  of  ignorance  and  savagery 
in  Africa  and  civilized  and  made  Christians  in  America. 
The  South  had  no  monopoly  of  this  sentiment ;  as  long  ago 
as  1452,  before  America  was  discovered,  Gomez  Ennes  de 
Azurara,  court  chronicler  of  Spain,  extolled  the  acts  of 
the  negro  stealers  then  active.  He  rated  them  as  valiant 
crusaders  of  the  Christian  faith,  bringing  heathen  to 
Christianity  and  civilization.  That  killing  and  cruelty 
were  necessary  he  deplored,  but  considered  the  evils  over- 
balanced by  the  saving  of  the  negro's  soul.  *He  admitted 
that  many  of  them  died  from  the  change  of  climate  and 
hard  treatment,  but  consoled  himself  that  they  expired  as 
Christians  and  therefore  were  happy. 

When  the  South  in  later  years,  from  its  pulpits,  in  its 
press,  and  through  its  business  and  social  channels,  stood 
in  defense  of  its  peculiar  Institution  upon  this  ground  of 
divine  commands,  it  was  advancing  nothing  new :  it  had 
the  authority  of  a  world  opinion  of  at  least  three  hun- 
dred years  upholding  and  sustaining  it.  The  mistake  our 
Southern  friends  made  was  not  that  they  permitted  slav- 
ery at  that  time,  but  that  they  failed  later  to  move  for- 
ward to  higher  views  in  line  with  more  progressive  people 
here  and  in  Europe. 

As  stated  before,  the  question  of  slavery  was  at  that 
time  almost  purely  an  economic  one :  families  both  North 
and  South  owned  negroes  largely  as  evidence  of  wealth 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  215 

and  social  standing.  But  no  economic  institution  can 
rise  or  fall  upon  that  basis  alone ;  in  the  long  run,  to 
succeed,  it  must  create  wealth,  not  spend  it;  it  must  supply 
money  to  pay  taxes,  feed  and  clothe  the  wife  and  chil- 
dren, and  provide  necessities  and  comforts,  or  it  will 
fail. 

The  negro  then  had  no  mechanical  ability.  Therefore, 
to  make  slavery  pay  demanded  some  field  crop  that  would 
employ  the  hands  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  year  round,  and 
that  possessed  a  sure  and  reasonably  constant  market. 
The  North  had  no  such  crop;  the  nearest  approach  the 
South  possessed  was  tobacco,  but  the  price  of  the  negro 
was  so  low  and  he  was  so  easy  to  get  that  the  planters 
soon  ruined  the  tobacco  market  by  oversupplying  it. 

About  this  time,  came  the  Revolutionary  War  and 
that  immortal  Declaration,  "We  hold  these  truths  to  be 
self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal."  That  was  a 
challenge  not  only  to  Great  Britain  and  the  world  at 
large,  but  to  every  slave  holder ;  there  was  no  escaping 
from  it ;  either  the  Declaration  was  a  lie,  or  the  negro  was 
not  a  man. 

The  challenge  of  the  "Declaration"  together  with  the 
non-economic  value  of  slavery  at  that  time  would,  I  be- 
lieve, have  then  wiped  it  from  the  face  of  the  nation, 
North  and  South,  had  there  been  an  available  place 
where  the  liberated  slaves  could  have  been  sent  and 
segregated.  It  was  the  undisputed  theory  in  the  South, 
held  firmly  up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War,  that  the  two 
races,  black  and  white,  could  not  live  together  except  by 
the  slavery  of  the  former.  Even  Lincoln,  before  his 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  tried  to  find  some  place  or 
country  that  wanted  the  negro,  but  failed.     Conditions 


2i6  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

soon  after  the  Revolution  were  such  on  the  plantation, 
that,  as  John  Randolph  once  expressed  it,  the  necessity 
would  soon  come  that,  "in  case  the  slave  should  not  elope 
from  his  master,  the  master  would  run  away  from  him." 

The  Revolutionary  War  finally  ended,  and  the  ques- 
tion of  "life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness"  having 
been  settled  for  the  white  man,  the  North  and  South 
faced  the  problem,  in  its  application  to  the  black  man. 
Many  prominent  men  in  the  South  were  as  honestly  anti- 
slavery  as  those  of  the  North.  Thomas  Jefferson  was  a 
stronger  believer  than  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  rights  of 
the  negro.  With  Lincoln  he  objected  to  bondage  extend- 
ing to  any  new  states,  and  in  1781  said,  "To  suffer  the 
continuance  of  the  slaves  in  states  already  overrun  with 
them  may  be  pardonable,  because  unavoidable,  but  to 
introduce  them  into  countries  where  none  exist,  can  never 
be  forgiven." 

He  went  even  further  than  Lincoln :  he  wished  to  have 
it  abolished  in  Virginia  where  it  had  existed  from  its 
very  first  introduction,  and  tried  to  frame  an  amendment 
to  disestablish  it.  In  support  of  this  course  he  said  in 
J7&5>  "Virginia  is  the  next  state  to  which  we  may  turn 
our  eyes  for  the  interesting  spectacle  of  justice  in  conflict 
with  avarice  and  oppression ;  a  conflict  in  which  the 
sacred  side  is  gaining  daily  recruits  from  the  influx  oi 
young  men,  grown  and  growing  up.  These  have  sucked  in 
the  principles  of  liberty,  as  it  were,  with  their  mother's 
milk,  and  it  is  to  these  that  I  look  with  anxiety  to  turn 
the  fate  of  the  question." 

Jefferson's  hope  was  not  realized ;  the  young  men  of 
Virginia  did  not  rally  to  freedom's  side ;  public  opinion 
was  opposed  to  emancipation,  the  cause  in  that  state  was 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  217 

lost.  But  though  he  lost  the  fight  in  his  own  state,  he 
had  many  friends  and  a  strong  following.  Washington 
was  one;  he  earnestly  wished  for  some  plan  "by  which 
slavery  would  be  abolished."  Of  the  one  hundred  and 
forty-three  emancipation  societies  that  existed  in  the 
country  at  large,  just  prior  to  the  introduction  of  Whit- 
ney's cotton  gin,  one  hundred  and  three  were  in  the  South. 
This  shows  that  a  strong,  honest,  and  energetic  effort  was 
made  in  that  section  to  give  the  slave  his  right,  even 
though  it  failed.  We  must  not  forget  that  the  fight  was 
made  but  lost. 

Between  the  years  1777  and  1804  the  Northern  states, 
one  by  one,  emancipated  the  slaves  within  their  borders 
by  more  or  less  gradual  methods.  In  182 1,  Ohio,  being 
willing  to  share  with  the  South  the  cost  of  freedom, 
proposed  the  emancipation  in  all  the  states  of  all  slaves 
as  they  reached  the  age  of  twenty-one  and  their  removal 
to  Liberia,  the  general  government  to  pay  the  expenses. 
Eight  other  Northern  states  concurred  in  this  resolution, 
but  as  six  Southern  states  refused,  the  cause  was  lost. 

In  both  North  and  South,  the  slavery  question  was 
double-headed  moral  and  economic.  First,  was  the  negro 
a  man  and  entitled  to  his  "life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness?"  Second,  did  it  pay  to  keep  him  as  a  slave, 
provided  right  to  do  so  was  established? 

As  heretofore  stated,  to  make  slavery  profitable  a 
country  must  have  some  agricultural  crop  that  will  em- 
ploy hands  the  year  round,  and  for  which  crop  there  is  a 
fairly  constant  market.  The  North  never  developed  such 
a  commodity ;  discussions  and  statistics  proved  that  for 
temporary  work  such  as  it  had,  free  labor  was  cheaper 
and  better  than  the  keeping  of  slaves  the  year  round.  The 


218  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

moral  view  was  warmly  debated,  and  the  decree  was 
given  that  the  black  fellow  was  a  man,  and  entitled  to  a 
man's  rights.  Therefore,  in  the  part  of  our  Union  where 
the  snow  lies  deepest,  it  was  decided  that  we  had  no  right 
to  keep  slaves,  and  it  would  not  pay  to  own  them  if  we 
had  such  authority. 

With  the  people  of  the  South  the  case  was  reversed. 
They  had  a  product,  tobacco,  that  answered  the  economic 
requirements,  but  they  had  "killed  the  goose  that  laid 
the  golden  egg'  by  over-supplying  their  market ;  so,  even 
with  them,  for  several  decades  after  the  Revolution, 
slavery  did  not  pay  financially.  Then  was  the  time  of 
emancipation  societies  in  the  South;  then  was  when  some 
method  would  have  been  found  to  free  the  slaves  could 
any  available  place  have  been  found  to  send  them.  In  the 
North  blacks  were  few.  But  in  the  South  the  tobacco 
industry  had  so  multiplied  the  negroes  that  the  idea  of 
freeing  them  and  allowing  them  to  remain  with  the 
whites  was,  at  that  time  among  planters,  altogether  un- 
thinkable. 

It  was  disastrously  unfortunate  for  the  country  just 
at  that  time,  when  the  scales  of  freedom  and  slavery  were 
so  evenly  balanced,  that  cotton  came  and  changed  the 
economic  conditions  and  settled  slavery  upon  the  nation. 
It  was  a  simple  little  piece  of  machinery  that  accomplished 
this  great  result.  It  had  been  realized  for  years  that 
cotton  of  finest  quality  could  be  raised,  and  that  its 
planting,  picking,  marketing,  and  separating  of  seed  from 
lint,  would  employ  slaves  the  year  round ;  also  that  the 
market  was  sure.  The  trouble  with  cotton  was,  that  the 
process  of  separating  the  seed  of  the  plant  from  the  lint 
that  it  carried,  was  so  slow  as  to  greatly  limit  the  quantity 


THE  FREEING  UE  THE  NEGRO  219 

of  product  and  make  it  unprofitable.  But  in  1793  Whit- 
ney came  with  his  inexpensive  cotton  gin  that  stripped 
the  lint  from  the  seed  cheaply,  quickly,  and  cleanly,  and 
henceforth,  at  least  in  the  South,  "Cotton  was  King." 

With  the  change  in  economic  value  of  the  slave,  came 
a  change  in  sentiment  concerning  him.  It  was  one  thing 
to  free  a  chattel  that  was  an  incumbrance  and  not  paying 
the  bother  and  expense  of  care  and  keep,  but  it  was  a 
different  matter  to  emancipate  one  who  was  earning,  net, 
from  five  hundred  to  a  thousand  dollars  a  year. 

With  the  alteration  in  the  economic  idea  came  also  a 
revision  in  the  moral  sentiment,  and  the  question  was 
examined  more  closely.  It  might  be  true  that  all  men 
were  created  equal,  but  could  not  that  equality  be  lost? 
Criminals  in  penal  institutions  had  lost  it,  and  might  not 
others  have  done  the  same?  Then  theologians  came  to 
the  rescue  with  a  new  teaching:  How,  through  an  ac- 
cident occuring  when  Noah  over-did  the  use  of  the  vine- 
yard he  planted,  Ham  was  sentenced,  "Cursed  be  Canaan, 
a  servant  of  servants  shall  he  be  unto  his  brethren."  By 
what  ethnologic  proof  the  negro  became  Ham,  and  we 
white  Saxons  his  brothers,  I  know  not,  but  it  was  doubt- 
less demonstrated  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  pulpit  in  the 
South,  and  the  joy  of  the  pew.  The  New  Testament  also 
was  quoted,  especially  the  Apostle  Paul's  warning  to 
servants,  "be  obedient  to  your  master  in  the  flesh" ;  and 
ministers  dwelt  strongly  upon  the  time  when  the  same 
Apostle  caught  a  runaway  slave,  Onesimus,  and  returned 
him  to  his  master,  Philemon,  with  a  letter  bespeaking 
mercy. 

Also  the  theory,  centuries  old,  was  ready  for  use,  that 
it  was  missionary  work  to  bring  the  savage  heathen  from 


220  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Africa  and  civilize  and  christianize  them  here.  This  was 
revamped,  brought  down  to  date,  and  modernized.  When 
these  opinions  and  theories,  and  many  others  like  them, 
were  taught  to  the  Southern  people  from  their  youth  up, 
in  the  pulpit,  from  the  rostrum,  by  the  press,  and  in  the 
home,  it  is  almost  certain  they  would  at  last  believe  them 
to  be  right. 

I  have  known  many  Southern  people ;  I  have  found 
them,  like  the  Northerners  and  Westerners,  mighty  fine 
folks.  I  think  we  are  all  pretty  much  alike,  and  under 
the  same  conditions  act  pretty  much  in  the  same  manner. 
We  are  equally  affected  by  the  same  environment,  submit 
in  the  same  way  to  outward  impressions,  and  strive  as 
mightily  after  those  ideals  in  manners,  morals,  and  ma- 
terial success  that  are  held  before  us  as  most  desirable 
of  attainment  in  the  communities  in  which  we  live.  I  am 
forced  to  confess  that  if  the  chance  for  financial  profit 
in  slavery  had  been  presented  to  the  North  that  was  de- 
veloped in  the  South,  and  if  the  same  dogmas  regarding 
the  rights  of  the  black  man  and  the  duties  of  the  white 
Christian  toward  him,  taught  by  the  church,  state,  and 
press,  had  obtained  in  Massachusetts  that  were  urged  in 
Virginia,  I  verily  believe  I  should  have  been  born  the 
son  of  a  slaveholder  or  else  I  should  have  been  pushed 
to  the  other  inevitable  end  of  every  slave-holding  com- 
munity, and  should  have  first  opened  my  eyes  on  some 
hill  of  the  old  Bay  State  as  one  of  the  many  "poor  white 
trash"  that  the  plantation  system  most  surely  evolves. 

The  working  relations  between  the  negro  and  his 
master  after  the  Institution  of  slavery  had  thus  grown 
up  among  us  were  as  varied  as  the  personality  of  both 
master  and  slave.     Planters  who  knew  most  concerning 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  221 

it  differed  greatly.  Some  of  them  extolled  the  faithful- 
ness, attachment,  industry,  and  obedience  of  their  slaves 
as  fully  as  their  language  would  permit.  Others  charged, 
'They  lie  and  steal  and  are  not  to  be  trusted  out  of  sight 
or  hearing."  Another  asserted,  "In  working  niggers  we 
must  calculate  they  will  not  labor  at  all  except  to  avoid 
punishment."  And  one  more  sufferer  says,  "It  seems  on 
the  plantations  as  if  they  took  pains  to  break  all  the 
tools  and  spoil  all  the  cattle  they  possibly  could." 

All  these  planters  were  probably  testifying  from  their 
own  experience,  but  the  causes  of  the  wide  differences  of 
opinion  are  as  diverse  as  the  make-up  of  the  actors  in- 
volved. Whether  you  consider  the  negro  as  a  man  or  an 
animal,  he  displays — like  the  white  man — characteristics 
of  both.  Tell  a  good  horseman  about  an  outlawed,  balky, 
worthless  horse,  and  he  instantly  demands,  "What  kind 
of  a  driver  has  he?"  He  knows  that  a  horse  uncontrol- 
able  by  one  man  is  true  to  its  last  breath  to  another. 

There  was  a  wealth  of  philosophy  in  the  old  settler 
whom  I  knew  during  my  backwoods  experience.  He 
loved  to  circulate  among  the  camp-fires  of  emigrants  on 
their  way  to  early  Minnesota,  when  they  were  resting  for 
the  night  near  his  place,  and  quiz  them  concerning  their 
social  relations  in  the  country  from  which  they  came.  He 
would  ask  one  party,  "What  kind  of  neighbors  did  you 
have  where  you  came  from?" 

The  reply  might  be,  "They  were  the  meanest,  low- 
down,  tattling  and  quarreling  lot  you  can  imagine.  I 
was  glad  to  get  away  from  there." 

The"  old  man  would  say,  "I  am  sorry,  but  you  will 
not  find  them  any  better  where  you  are  going." 


222  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Another  to  whom  the  same  question  was  propounded 
might  reply,  "Well,  neighbor,  that  is  the  deep  regret  my 
wife  and  I  had  when  we  left  the  old  place.  We  had  the 
finest  neighbors  and  friends  in  the  world,  kind,  helpful, 
and  true.     It  really  broke  our  heart  to  part  with  them." 

The  old  man  would  then  place  his  hand  on  the  emi- 
grant's shoulder,  and  say,  "Never  mind,  you  will  find 
them  just  as  good  in  your  new  home." 

In  our  merchant  marine  and  in  our  navy,  we  have 
what  the  sailors  call  "happy  ships"  and  those  that  are 
"veritable  hells."  The  reason  why  these  vessels  are  the 
one  or  the  other  may  often  be  found,  not  among  the  deck 
hands  and  sailors  but  among  the  officers,  behind  the  mast, 
or  with  the  captain  upon  the  bridge. 

What  is  true  in  all  these  cases  was  also  true  where 
African  slavery  held  sway.  On  some  plantations  the  negro 
was  well-cared  for,  well-fed,  kindly  and  considerately 
used :  the  response  to  such  treatment  was  likely  to  return 
fidelity,  industry,  and  trustworthiness.  On  other  planta- 
tions, most  probably  the  large  ones,  he  was  ill-fed  and 
worked  hard ;  no  consideration  was  given  his  wants  or 
comfort,  and  the  result  might  be  laziness,  carelessness, 
and  even  wanton  damage  to  tools  and  property. 

So  long  as  human  nature  is  the  uncertain  and  despotic 
thing  we  often  find  it,  "happy  plantations"  and  those  that 
were  "hells  upon  earth"  must  have  existed  wherever 
slavery  lived;  and  the  tendency  of  the  Institution  itself 
was  towards  the  latter  condition.  The  master,  or  his  over- 
seer or  driver  as  his  agent,  was  the  absolute  controller 
of  the  slave,  his  property,  his  domestic  relations,  his 
liberty — even  his  life.    That  all  slave-holding  States  made 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  223 

the  malicious  and  unnecessary  killing  of  the  negro  slave 
a  capital  offense  does  not  alter  or  modify  the  above 
statement,  because  it  was  held  that  "a  slave  dying  under 
moderate  corrections  was  not  murder."  As  no  negro 
could  testify,  and  only  those  implicated  in  such  death 
could  be  witnesses,  malicious  and  unnecessary  killing 
would  be  nearly  impossible  of  proof. 

Some  of  the  axioms  enforced  by  the  Institution,  rec- 
ognized and  really  necessary  for  its  preservation,  were : 
"Slave  labor  depends  upoiri)  physical  force,  abundant 
enough,  swift  enough,  and  thorough  enough,  to  compel 
obedience  and  break  down  insubordination." 

"If  slavery  is  allowable,  anything  to  keep  it  up  is 
justifiable." 

"The  control  of  slaves  by  any  severity  necessary  to 
preserve  slavery  is  deeply  inwrought  in  the  whole  fabric 
of  Southern  society." 

"For  man,  woman  and  child,  the  only  ultimate  sanc- 
tion for  command  is  force,  and  the  community  did  not 
feel  kindly  toward  masters  who  spoil  their  slaves  by 
leaving  them  uncorrected." 

A  leading  opinion  given  by  Chief  Justice  Ruffin,  of 
North  Carolina,  in  1829,  in  a  suit  where  a  master  was 
prosecuted  for  beating  his  slave,  and  acquitted  upon  the 
ground  that  he  had  a  right  to  punish  short  of  death, 
reads :  "The  end  is  the  profit  of  the  master,  and  the 
public  safety;  the  subject  is  doomed  in  his  own  person, 
and  his  posterity,  without  knowledge  and  without  capac- 
ity to  make  anything  his  own.  . .  .such  services  can  only 
be  expected  from  one  who  has  no  will  of  his  own,  who 
surrenders  his  will  in  implicit  obedience  to  that  of  another. 


224  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Such  is  the  consequence  only  of  uncontrolled  authority 
over  the  body.  There  is  nothing  else  can  operate  to  pro- 
duce the  effect.  The  power  of  the  master  must  be  abso- 
lute to  render  the  submission  of  the  slave  perfect."  In 
his  obiter  dictum  he  says,  "As  a  principle  of  right,  every 
person  in  his  retirement  must  repudiate  it,  but  in  the 
actual  condition  of  things  it  must  be  so;  there  is  no 
remedy  for  it.  This  discipline  belongs  to  the  state  of 
slavery.  It  constitutes  the  curse  of  slavery,  both  to  the 
bond  and  free  portion  of  our  population." 

The  Institution  even  dictated  to  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  Judge  Taney  found  in  obedience  thereto  that,  in 
effect,  "a  negro  had  no  rights  that  a  white  man  was 
bound  to  respect." 

These  quotations  and  opinions  sound  barbaric — they 
were  cruel;  but  careful  consideration  leads  to  the  con- 
clusion that  such  views  were  necessary  if  slavery  was  to 
be  kept  alive.  The  negro  in  his  African  home  was  never 
a  persistent  laborer ;  his  work  was  intermittent  and  light, 
and  by  the  heredity  of  ages  he  was  a  trifler  and  an  idler 
even  when  he  was  working  for  himself.  Bringing  him 
to  this  country  and  placing  him  on  a  plantation  and  re- 
quiring him  to  work  for  some  one  else  did  not  improve 
his  desire  for  industry.  In  Africa  his  habit  was  to  get 
up  in  the  morning  or  lie  in  bed  as  his  desire  predominated. 
Here,  if  he  was  on  a  plantation,  the  horn  blew  one  hour 
before  daylight  and  commanded  him  to  get  up  and  pre- 
pare his  breakfast  and  dinner  and  be  ready  to  go  into 
the  field  at  break  of  day.  At  home,  he  worked  or  not 
as  he  saw  fit ;  here,  as  soon  as  it  was  light  enough  to  see, 
he  must  go  into  the  field  and  work,  work,  work,  with  only 
one  hour  of  rest  (to  eat  the  dinner  he  brought  with  him) 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  225 

until  sun  set  at  least,  but  often  as  long  as  daylight  lasted, 
and  then  go  home  and  get  his  supper.  And  this  order 
both  for  man  and  woman  continued  six  days  in  the  week, 
fifty-two  weeks  in  the  year,  Fourth  of  July  day  and 
Christmas  week  only  excepted. 

What  was  it  that  could  transform  this  idler  into  such 
a  constant  worker  ?  It  could  not  be  love  for  the  men  who 
burned  his  villages  in  Africa,  killed  his  relatives,  and 
brought  him  in  chains  to  dire  servitude ;  it  was  not  fear 
of  imprisonment,  because  that  would  be  to  him  a  rest ;  he 
would  have  to  be  fed  and  would  not  be  compelled  to 
work;  it  was  impossible  to  punish  him  by  fines,  for  he 
had  no  property.  Whatever  might  be  done  with  house 
servants,  and  individual  cases  on  small  plantations,  I 
know  not;  but  on  large  plantations  there  was  but  one 
answer,  one  method  only  to  compel  him  to  labor — physical 
force.  The  whip  was  the  chief  exponent  of  this  form  of 
education.  Overseers  and  drivers  carried  it  always  and 
used  it,  sometimes  from  necessity,  many  times  perhaps  in 
passion.  As  these  men  might  be  degenerates,  they  may 
have  used  the  whip  sometimes  in  spite,  or  even  compel 
compliance  to  demands  that  shall  be  nameless  here. 
Wherever  the  blackman  labored  in  slavery,  there  the 
whip  flourished  as  a  compelling  force,  and  no  one  spoke  a 
word  against  such  use.  Even  Washington,  on  his  planta- 
tion, emancipator  that  he  wanted  to  be,  humanitarian 
that  he  was,  used  it,  and  wrote  to  his  overseer,  "Let 
Abram  get  his  deserts  when  taken,  but  don't  let  Crow 
give  it  to  him." 

I  do  not  say  that  there  were  no  places  where  the 
whip  was  not  used,  because  I  know  such  was  not  the 
case.    Many  were  the  city  and  country  houses  and  smaller 


226  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

plantations  where  justice  and  kindness  were  found  in  the 
big  house,  and  obedience,  love,  and  affection  in  the  cabin. 
This  condition  was  no  doubt  the  rule,  where  the  slaves 
had  been  born  and  bred  (as  in  the  older  states)  servants 
to  the  same  people,  and  associated  with  them  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  I  have  met  and  talked  with  many  of 
these  old  negroes  who  are  as  proud  of  "their  old  families" 
and  as  loyal  to  their  traditions  as  any  of  the  white  mem- 
bers of  the  same  could  possibly  be.  But  even  here  the  whip 
waved  in  the  background,  and  they  might  feel  it  any  time 
should  necessity  sell  them  south  or  financial  disaster  or 
sure  death  meet  their  beloved  master.  These  brighter 
spots  in  the  dark  picture  of  slavery  represent  only  a  por- 
tion of  the  broad  view ;  the  great  mass  of  slaves  were 
worked  on  large  plantations  where  they  came  in  contact 
with  few  whites  except  the  overseers  and  drivers.  On 
such  plantations  they  were  worked  for  the  money  there 
was  in  them. 

When  we  consider  the  tendency  of  the  facts  presented, 
it  is  strange  that  the  Institution  was  not  more  brutal, 
more  demoralizing,  and  more  fatal  and  deadly  than  it 
ultimately  became.  The  reason  for  this  restraint  was  that 
the  Southern  planter  in  his  kindness  of  heart,  his  con- 
sideration for  the  helpless,  and  his  love  of  fair  play,  was 
unquestionably  more  just,  generous,  and  sympathetic  than 
the  Institution  that  controlled  him.  I  say  "controlled 
him,"  having  full  view  of  the  significance  of  these  words. 
The  negro  was  no  more  the  slave  of  his  owner  than  his 
owner  was  the  slave  of  the  Institution,  and  the  slave  no 
more  dared  disobey  his  master  than  the  master  dared  dis- 
obey the  rules,  laws,  and  customs  of  that  Institution. 

Can  this  be  true?    Let  us  consider  the  case.  A  planter 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  227 

might  have  a  half-brother  as  white  as  himself  but  who 
was  his  slave.  They  might  have  been  brought  up  to- 
gether, as  many  were,  might  have  been  nursed  by  the  same 
foster  mother,  played  together  from  childhood,  and  loved 
each  other  as  brothers  should.  But  could  he  educate  him  ? 
The  Institution  says  No ;  we  will  send  you  to  the  peniten- 
tiary if  you  do.  Could  he  sit  at  the  table  and  eat  with 
him?  No;  society  would  ostracize  him  forever  should 
he  do  so.  If  the  slave  was  unjustly  charged  with  crime, 
and  being  innocent,  resisted  arrest,  could  the  white  brother 
save  him  from  the  gallows?  No.  Should  the  master 
be  charged  with  some  assault  against  a  white  man,  and 
his  slave  brother  knew  he  was  innocent,  would  the  slave 
brother  be  allowed  to  testify  and  save  the  master  brother 
from  the  penitentiary?  No.  Would  the  master  be  per- 
mitted to  treat  his  brother  in  any  way  as  an  equal  ?  No. 
The  Institution  had  drawn  a  line  that  no  Southern  man 
dared  cross. 

Any  person  who  had  a  drop  of  negro  blood  in  his 
veins,  even  so  slight  that  it  was  impossible  to  detect  it, 
was  as  fully  a  negro  as  the  blackest  Senegambian  that 
ever  came  from  Africa,  and  one  who  would  treat  him 
in  any  way  different  would  be  debarred  from  white  so- 
ciety. 

The  master  might  be  a  drunkard,  a  gambler,  an  adult- 
erer or  even  a  murderer,  and  still  maintain  his  caste ;  but 
to  eat  with  a  half-brother  as  white,  as  able,  and  as  intel- 
ligent as  himself,  was  an  unforgivable  sin.  Why?  Be- 
cause it  was  necessary  to  so  rule  in  order  to  maintain  the 
Institution,  and  no  one  dared  disobey.  The  Institution 
controlled  the  master  financially,  as  well  as  legally  and 
socially.    Years  after  the  war,  in  a  club  room  in  Mobile, 


228  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Alabama,  I  was  talking  with  a  Virginia  ex-slave-holder 
who  said  to  me,  "There  is  one  thing  you  Yanks  do  not 
understand ;  it  is  that  when  you  freed  the  negro  you  also 
freed  the  master.  I  was  the  worst  worked  slave  on  my 
plantation  when  emancipation  came."  He  represented  a 
large  class  of  Southern  slave  owners  who  lived  outside 
the  cotton  belt  and  where  slaves  could  not  be  profitably 
worked.  He  believed  the  blacks  were  men  and  women, 
and  refused,  like  George  Washington,  to  sell  them  on  the 
market  like  so  many  cattle.  The  certain  result  in  this 
case  followed  :  the  plantation  sooner  or  later  became  over- 
run with  darkies  who  could  not  raise  enough  to  pay  their 
annual  expense,  and  the  sheriff  was  a  more  or  less  con- 
stant visitor  at  the  owner's  door. 

The  only  solution  of  this  condition  seemed  to  be,  either 
to  sell  some  negroes  or  set  them  free ;  most  owners  were 
compelled  to  adopt  the  plan  of  selling.  Richmond  papers 
in  the  fall  of  1836  say,  "Estimates  by  intelligent  men 
placed  Virginia's  export  in  slaves  the  preceding  year  at 
one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand."  Part  of  these  emi- 
grated with  their  masters,  but  the  most  were  sold  and 
exported  by  traders.  This  method  of  cleaning  up  a  plan- 
tation was  almost  universal.  To  planters  who  were  con- 
scientiously opposed  to  selling  men  like  cattle,  the  second 
plan  mentioned,  emancipation  was  forbidden  by  the 
Institution  unless  the  owner  filed  bonds  to  support  the 
negroes  after  they  became  free.  These  bonds  might  be 
hard  to  procure,  and  would  only  increase  the  financial 
troubles  of  the  already  over-burdened  planter.  Whatever 
others  may  think  in  this  matter,  my  sympathy  is  extended 
to  the  most  down-trodden  and  hard-working  slave  on 
such  a  plantation — the  master  and  owner. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  229 

CHAPTER  XIII 
SERVITUDE  "BEFO  'DE  WAH" 

The  last  slave  in  Massachusetts  had  died  just  before  I 
made  my  appearance  there  in  1840.  I  had  the  distinction 
to  be  born  in  almost  the  only  state  in  the  Union  that  had, 
at  that  time,  no  slaves.  New  Hampshire  still  had  one; 
Rhode  Island,  five ;  Connecticut,  seventeen ;  and  even 
newly  admitted  Iowa,  my  future  home,  sixteen. 

During  the  sixty  years  ending  in  1850,  slaves  in  the 
New  England  and  the  Middle  Atlantic  States,  by  slow 
manumission  and  death,  had  decreased  from  40,086  to 
236,  while,  during  the  same  time  in  the  Southern  states 
they  had  increased  from  657,538  to  3,324,060. 

Slavery  during  my  boyhood  was  probably  at  the  pin- 
nacle of  its  financial  success  and  political  power.  In  its 
pride,  it  thought  at  one  time  to  make  a  slave  state  out  of 
Illinois,  which  had  previously  been  admitted  to  the  Union 
with  a  free  constitution.  The  efTort  was  made,  but  de- 
feated by  a  vote  of  the  people.  During  the  heat  of  that 
contest  a  member  of  the  Illinois  legislature,  by  the  sug- 
gestive name  of  John  Grammar,  made  the  following  ap- 
peal in  favor  of  slavery. 

"Having  rights  on  my  side,  I  don't  fear,  Sir.  Twill 
show  that  that  ar  proposition  is  unconstitutionable,  illegal, 
and  forninst  the  compact.  Don't  everybody  know,  or  at 
least-wise  ought  to  know,  that  Congress  that  sat  at  Vin- 
cennes  guaransheed  to  all  French  inhabitants  the  right  to 
their  niggers,  and  ain't  I  got  as  much  rights  as  any 
Frenchman  in  the  state?    Answer  me  that." 


23o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

In  spite  of  this  appeal,  or  perhaps  because  of  it, 
voters  of  the  state  refused  to  change  their  constitution 
from  freedom  to  slavery,  by  a  ballot  of  six  thousand  six 
hundred  and  forty  against  such  change  to  four  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  seventy-two  in  favor  of  it. 

The  first  step  leading  to  the  prosperity  of  the  South 
was  the  closing  of  the  African  slave  trade.  The  North 
and  South  had  united  in  supporting  this  legislation ;  the 
North  from  humanitarian  and  political  reasons,  and  the 
South  from  the  same  cause,  with  this  added  thought, 
that  such  act  would  increase  the  value  of  her  slaves  then 
on  hand,  and  thereby  tend  to  decrease  the  over-production 
that  was  ruining  her  market. 

Both  these  forecasts  were  correct.  Prime  field  hands 
that  before  the  foreign  trade  closed  could  have  been 
bought  for  two  hundred  dollars  rose  in  price  to  three  hun- 
dred in  1820,  to  six  hundred  in  1830,  a  thousand  to  twelve 
hundred  in  1840,  and  the  price  was  soaring  towards  two 
thousand  just  before  the  war.  For  two  decades,  at  least, 
before  that  time  there  was  a  general  rule  for  the  price  of 
slaves,  more  or  less  closely  followed ;  a  good  field  hand 
was  worth  a  hundred  dollars  for  every  cent  to  the  pound 
that  cotton  sold  for.  If  cotton  sold  for  twelve  cents  a 
pound,  a  good  picker  was  worth  twelve  hundred  dollars. 
Thus  the  price  of  slaves  marched  alongside  the  price  of 
cotton,  both  advancing,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  slave 
labor. 

But  the  inability  of  the  northeastern  slave  states — 
Virginia,  Maryland,  the  Carolinas,  and  others — to  supply 
the  wants  of  the  newer  southwestern  plantations,  broke 
the  hundred  dollar  rule  and  sent  prices  so  high  that  there 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  231 

was  a  loud  call  from  the  lower  South  to  open  again  the 
African  slave  trade.  This  might  have  been  done  had  not 
the  Civil  War  settled  forever  the  slave  question  in  Amer- 
ica. 

Although  the  old  slave-producing  states  failed  to 
supply  the  growing  wants  of  the  new  southwest  cotton 
district,  they  certainly  performed  wonders  in  that  direc- 
tion. They  had  taken  this  want  seriously  into  considera- 
tion, as  shown  from  a  letter  from  one  James  Corbin,  who 
wrote  to  James  Madison  in  18 19,  saying  that  wheat  rais- 
ing compared  with  tobacco  raising  was  "by  no  means  as 
conducive  to  the  health  of  our  negroes  upon  whose  in- 
crease our  principal  profit  depends."  As  mentioned  be- 
fore, Virginia  in  one  year  was  estimated  to  have  sent  out 
a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  negro  slaves.  Census 
tables  show  that  there  must  have  immigrated  into  the 
states  of  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  from  a  half 
to  three-quarters  of  a  million  slaves. 

These  had  not  all  been  sold  from  one  master  to  the 
other.  Some  masters  had  emigrated  with  their  slaves. 
They  had  disposed  of  their  worn-out  plantations  in  the 
older  states,  taken  all  their  removable  chattels — men, 
women,  children,  horses,  mules,  and  everything  else — 
and  like  Abraham  of  old,  had  moved  to  a  new  and  better 
country.  Only  a  person  who  has  enjoyed  the  penetrating 
of  a  new  country  under  the  conditions  of  clean,  outdoor 
life — the  moving  wagon-top  by  day  and  the  shelter  of  a 
tent  by  night — can  realize  the  chances  which  such  an  ag- 
gregation as  I  have  mentioned  might  have  for  enjoyment. 
I  doubt  not  the  darkies  of  such  a  group,  if  they  had  a  good 
master,  turned  the  march  into  a  jolly  picnic,   and  had 


232  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

such  a  time  that  its  memories  entranced  their  listening 
children  and  grandchildren  in  long  following  years. 

But  the  slave  "coffles"  of  the  traders  who  handled  the 
larger  number  of  migrants  were  far  different.  The  men, 
women,  and  children  who  composed  them  had  been  torn 
from  their  homes,  their  friends,  perhaps  their  wives  or 
husbands  or  parents,  and  were  driven  hopelessly  to  a 
destiny  they  had  always  coupled  with  slow  death.  They 
were  going  unwillingly,  and  only  as  far  and  as  fast  as 
the  force  of  the  Institution  could  compel  them.  These 
coffles  contained,  most  likely,  some  of  the  insubordinate, 
unruly,  and  perhaps  criminal  slaves  of  the  community 
from  which  they  had  been  drawn. 

What  could  two  or  three  men  do  with  a  hundred  or 
more  such  unwilling,  hopeless,  possibly  desperate,  men  or 
women,  in  order  to  protect  their  own  lives  and  property 
from  loss?  The  answer  is  obvious.  Therefore,  when  I 
read,  "Overland  coffles  from  border  states  to  the  lower 
plantations  resembled  those  spoken  of  by  Mungo  Park  in 
Africa,  the  slaves  being  manacled  and  chained,"  I  do  not 
doubt  that  it  represents  the  facts,  because  if  I  had  under- 
taken any  such  business  and  had  ventured  my  money  and 
my  life  in  any  such  property,  I  do  not  see  how  I  could 
have  felt  safe  a  minute  of  the  day  did  I  not  have  every 
one  within  absolute  control. 

If  it  was  right  to  buy  and  sell  men,  it  was  necessary  to 
carry  them  to  a  market  where  sale  was  possible.  The 
men  who  risked  the  transfer  were  in  equity  entitled  to 
protect  themselves  from  loss  of  either  life  or  property 
during  the  change.  The  shame  for  these  manacles  and 
chains  lies  not  with  the  men  who  put  them  on,  but  with 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  233 

the  Institution  that  compelled  the  trade  and  forced  the 
brutality  upon  its  followers. 

The  black  fellows  who  wore  these  shackles  carried 
them  far  differently :  some  with  deep  disgrace,  some  with 
deadly  defiance,  some  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  some  as 
a  joke.  I  remember  reading  of  one  case  where  a  traveler, 
meeting  such  a  coffle,  found  a  young  fellow  and  a  middle 
aged  man  coupled  together  and  leading  the  column.  The 
young  man  was  whistling  and  singing,  and  as  they  met 
he  sang  out,  "Dis  de  way  to  do  it.  When  you  trabble, 
go  in  style."  But  the  other  man  was  disconsolate.  The 
first  was  foot  loose,  with  no  ties  of  heart  or  home  to  bind 
him,  but  the  other  had  been  torn  from  his  family  and 
everything  that,  to  him,  made  life  worth  living. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  negro  traders  who  were 
the  financial  salvation  of  the  planters  of  the  northeastern 
slave  states,  were  looked  down  upon  and  refused  affilia- 
tion with  the  planters  they  rescued.  The  slave  owners 
would  sell  their  surplus  chattels  to  one  another  for  much 
less  price  than  to  these  men.  They  would  resort  to  all 
other  means  of  disposing  of  them  before  patronizing  the 
firms  organized  and  operated  for  that  purpose.  The 
Yankee  farmer  was  no  more  keen  or  alive  to  the  necessity 
of  disposing  of  his  surplus  chattels  than  a  Virginian  or 
Carolina  planter  was  when  he  found,  as  the  saying  went 
with  them,  "that  he  had  to  eat  a  nigger"  in  order  to  keep 
the  sheriff  from  his  door  for  another  year. 

The  planter  had  one  advantage  the  Yankee  farmer  had 
not.  He  could  call  a  darkey  into  his  office  and  say :  "Sam, 
I  am  in  a  tight  place  financially,  and  I  have  to  sell  one  of 
you  boys.  You  are  a  good  hand,  and  I  could  get  a  thousand 


234  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

dollars  for  you  to  go  South  on  a  plantation;  but  I  don't 
want  to  do  it.  Now  I  will  give  you  a  pass  to  go  where 
necessary  and  a  letter  vouching  for  you,  and  if  you  can 
find  a  new  master  whom  you  want,  I  will  let  him  have 
you  for  eight  hundred  dollars  if  he  keeps  you  from  the 
trader."  There  were  many  cases  on  record  where  the 
chattel  was  thus  sent  around  to  sell  himself,  but  how 
often  this  method  was  used  and  how  successful  were 
the  results,  "deponent  saith  not." 

The  traders,  in  the  meantime,  cared  little  for  the 
ostracism  of  the  planter.  They  knew  that  at  last  the 
surplus  negro  population  of  these  non-cotton  and  worn-out 
states  must  come  to  them,  and  they  realized  that  the 
blacker  the  ostracism  was  the  fewer  men  would  be  in  the 
business  and  the  greater  the  profits  to  those  who  continued 
therein.  So  they  established  their  buying  agencies  in  the 
northeastern  slave  states  and  their  selling  barracoons  and 
establishments  in  the  West  and  Southwest.  They  moved 
their  chattels  by  marching  coffles  across  the  country,  by 
"coon  cars"  on  railroads  when  convenient,  or  by  coast 
ships  if  buying  and  selling  places  were  both  near  the  coast 
line. 

By  1850,  firms  with  barracoons  for  handling  the  sale 
of  slaves  had  been  established  in  all  the  principal  cities 
of  the  Southwest.  These  companies  handled  their  slave 
consignments  at  the  usual  price  of  thirty-seven  and  one- 
half  cents  per  day  for  confinement,  exhibition,  and  board, 
and  two  and  one-half  per  cent  commission  on  sales, 
owner  s  risk. 

Touching  working  method,  I  have  tried  faithfully  to 
find  out  what  were  the  usual  conditions  that  prevailed  on 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  235 

the  Average  plantation  in  the  South.  I  have  read  what  has 
been  written  by  both  Northerners  and  Southerners,  I  have 
talked  with  ex-plantation  owners  and  ex-plantation  slaves 
from  many  slave  states,  and  I  think  I  know  as  fully  as 
can  be  ascertained  by  one  who  did  not  live  in  it,  what  the 
environment  was  of  the  plantation  slaves  who  constituted 
three-fourths  of  the  old  slave  population  of  the  South. 

As  I  have  already  stated,  it  is  true  that  the  plantation 
owner  and  his  agents,  the  overseer  and  his  driver,  had 
undisputed  sway  over  the  person  of  the  slave,  his  prop- 
erty, his  domestic  relations,  his  wife,  his  children,  his 
liberty,  and  his  life,  saving  only  that  they  must  not  let  a 
white  man  see  them  kill  a  slave  maliciously  and  unneces- 
sarily. The  slaves,  were  not  permitted  to  leave  the  limits 
of  the  plantation  without  the  written  pass  of  their  master 
or  overseer.  To  prevent  their  doing  so,  the  country  was 
constantly  patrolled  night  and  day,  and  any  caught  out- 
side the  limits  without  a  pass  were  either  soundly  flogged 
or  put  into  the  calaboose  for  their  masters  to  attend  to. 
No  attempts  of  the  slave  to  learn  to  read  were  permitted. 
A  scrap  of  newspaper  or  any  other  printing  found  in  a 
cabin  subjected  its  occupant  to  severe  punishment. 

The  almost  universal  ration  consisted  of  one  peck  of 
corn  or  meal,  and  three  pounds  of  pork  a  week,  with 
occasional  molasses,  salt,  etc.,  at  the  planter's  option. 
Cooking  must  be  done  by  the  slave  outside  working  hours. 
Two  suits  of  clothes  were  allowed  the  men  each  year — a 
heavy  one  for  winter,  and  a  light  one  for  summer.  The 
material  was  usually  rough,  plantation  cloth,  spun,  woven, 
and  made  up  on  the  plantation.     One  pair  of  home-made 


236  OXE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

shoes  was  also  given  them  for  winter  wear.     A  Georgia 
planter,  estimated  the  value  of  these  articles  as  follows : 

Weekly  peck  of  corn.  .  .  .   $13.00  per  year 

Two  suits  of  clothes 7.00  per  year 

One  pair  of  shoes 1.00  per  year 

Total $21.00  per  year 

Add  to  this  "occasional  meat,  salt  molasses,  and  med- 
ical attendance,"  and  the  total  cost  per  capita  to  support 
men  and  women  might  be  somewhere  near  thirty-five  dol- 
lars a  year.  Women  received  in  the  place  of  suits,  home- 
spun cloth,  needles,  thread  and  buttons  with  which  to 
make  their  own  Clothing.  Both  men  and  women  were 
given  one  blanket  every  three  years.  Another  planter 
estimated  the  cost  of  keeping  a  negro  to  be  forty  dollars  a 
year.  Others  estimated  such  cost  at  from  fifteen  to  fifty 
dollars  a  year,  medical  attendance  not  included. 

Marriage  could  be  contracted  only  by  permission  of 
the  master,  and  he  usually  required  it  to  be  made  only 
between  his  own  slaves.  It  might  be  solemnized  in  church, 
made  legal  by  a  civil  officer,  or  be  simply  a  common  law 
living  together,  as  circumstances  required  or  the  master 
dictated.  This  carelessness  regarding  the  marital  rela- 
tions, fostered  in  slavery,  has  not  been  entirely  stamped 
out  to  this  day  among  the  negro  population. 

Women,  married  and  single,  were  considered  full  field 
hands.  In  computing  a  field  force  a  discount  of  only  ten 
per  cent  was  made  for  "breeders  and  suckers."  The  nurs- 
ing mothers  were  not  excused  from  the  field,  but  the 
babies  were  placed  under  the  care  of  some  decrepit  old 
"mammy,"  and  the  mothers  were  permitted  to  go  to  them 
four  times  during  the  day  for  half  an  hour  each  time. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  237 

One  old  ex-slave  told  me  that  on  his  plantation  the  boss 
had  fixed  up  a  long  box-like  body  on  old  carriage  wheels 
and  had  partitioned  the  bottom  into  little  baby-sized  com- 
partments. This  vehicle,  loaded  with  babies  and  drawn  by 
an  old  horse,  the  mammy  would  bring  at  stated  intervals 
to  the  waiting  mothers.  Very  young  children  were  put  to 
work,  helping  somehow  and  somewhere.  At  twelve  or 
fourteen  years  of  age  they  went  to  the  field,  many  times 
as  full  plow  hands. 

The  first  horn  for  work  blew  an  hour  before  day- 
break, when  all  hands  must  get  up,  eat  their  breakfast,  and 
prepare  to  go  to  work.  As  day  was  breaking  the  plow 
hands  started  out,  and  at  daylight  the  second  horn  blew 
for  the  hoe  hands  to  commence  work.  At  noon,  work 
was  stopped  for  an  hour  for  the  purpose  of  eating  the 
dinner  they  had  brought  to  the  field.  Then  work  con- 
tinued until  sundown  on  some  plantations,  but  until  dark 
upon  others.  Curfew  blew  at  nine  or  nine-thirty  o'clock, 
at  which  time  all  must  be  in  their  cabins  and  in  their  beds. 

These  hours  of  labor  were  long,  but  there.is  evidence 
that  the  planters,  anxious  to  produce  crops,  and  overseers 
desiring  to  make  records,  were  disposed  to  work  the 
hands  longer.  One  planter,  Hammond,  laid  down  this 
rule  for  his  overseer :  "No  work  must  be  required  after 
dark."  South  Carolina  found  it  necessary  to  pass  a  law 
limiting  the  hours  of  slave  labor  to  fourteen  in  winter  and 
fifteen  in  summer.  Upon  sugar  plantations  in  the  Gulf 
states,  during  grinding  season,  eighteen  hours  was  a  day's 
work.  Imagine  what  labor  union  men  would  say  if  such 
hours  were  required  of  them! 

The  whip  as  a  means  of  discipline  and  education  on 
the   plantation   might  be,   and  often   was,   reinforced  by 


238  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

tying  up  the  slave  by  the  thumbs,  bucking  and  gagging 
him,  or  any  other  means  of  discomfort  and  pain  that 
ingenuity  or  circumstances  might  dictate.  The  laws  in 
most  states  also  came  to  the  planters'  aid  by  making 
death  the  penalty  for  the  following  acts :  resisting  punish- 
ment or  arrest,  striking  an  overseer  or  master,  striking 
any  member  of  the  master's  family,  conspiracy,  burglary 
or  arson. 

What  cause  turned  the  children  of  the  black  women 
coffee-colored,  and  the  progeny  of  these  to  near-white,  I 
will  not  discuss;  but  whatever  the  cause  may  have  been, 
the  process  continued  until  the  census  reports  that  nearly 
three-tenths  of  those  listed  as  negroes  are  mulattoes,  and 
in  parts  of  the  South,  especially  in  the  cities,  fully  black 
men  with  purely  African  features  are  almost  an  exception. 

This  fact  must  make  gray  the  hair  of  ushers  whose 
duty  it  is  to  keep  the  two  races  separate.  I  remember  at 
a  circus  performance  in  Mobile,  where  I  saw  a  white- 
looking  couple,  as  nicely  dressed  as  you  could  find  in 
any  city,  eater  the  tent  and  start  towards  the  negroes' 
seats.  An  usher  rushed  after  them,  and,  stopping  them 
said,  "You  can't  go  there.  Those  are  reserved  for 
'niggers.'  " 

The  man  quietly  replied,  "Beg  pardon,  but  we  belong 
there.    Although  we  are  not  'niggers,'  we  are  negroes." 

Cotton  held  sway  so  despotically  in  Dixie  Land  that 
other  field  crops  and  manufactures  were  neglected  until 
the  South  was  dependent  upon  the  North  for  all  kinds  of 
supplies.  This  condition  made  a  rich  market  for  the  cities 
of  the  North,  and  they  vied  with  each  other  to  please 
the  Southern  people  and  to  control  their  trade.     This  ac- 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  239 

counts  for  much  pro-slavery  sentiment  in  the  North  and 
the  riots  in  which  abolitionists  were  maltreated  and 
mobbed.  Between  1833  and  1836,  over  twenty-five  riots 
occurred  in  the  North,  and  anti-slavery  men  were  mal- 
treated and  even  killed  by  the  communities  in  which  they 
lived  in  order  to  prove  to  the  South  that  non-interference 
with  slavery  was  the  policy  north  of  the  Mason- uixou 
line.  This  desire  upon  the  part  of  the  North  to  conciliate 
the  South,  both  to  protect  the  Union  and  to  secure  trade, 
led  the  free  states  to  surrender  the  political  control  of  the 
nation  to  the  slave  Institution. 

For  nearly  half  a  century,  from  181 5  to  i860,  its  policy 
governed  the  country  almost  completely.  Only  Southern 
men,  or  Northern  men  dominated  in  their  official  actions 
at  least  by  pro-slavery  ideas,  filled  the  presidential  chair. 
Adams,  Van  Buren,  Fillmore,  Pierce  and  Buchanan  were 
Northern  men  who  held  the  office  during  that  period,  but 
not  one  stood  for  anti-slavery  principles  while  in  office. 
During  all  that  time  no  one  who  was  recognized  as  an 
anti-slavery  man  was  appointed  to  any  important  post- 
mastership,  to  the  Federal  bench,  to  a  collectorate,  or 
even  as  foreign  counsel  or  minister. 

During  the  last  two  decades  before  the  Civil  War,  the 
Northern  people  were  so  anxious  to  keep  on  living  terms 
with  the  South  that  they  even  agreed  to  turn  themselves 
into  deputy  sheriffs  and  constables,  and  catch  and  return 
slaves  to  their  masters  across  the  line.  The  Fugitive 
Slave  Act  of  1850  was  to  that  effect,  and  such  no  doubt 
was  the  intent  of  a  large  majority  of  the  Northern  people. 
But  some  would  not  agree  thereto.  Even  though  it  was 
illegal   and  punishable  by   fine   and   imprisonment,   they 


24o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

appealed  to  the  "Higher  Law"  and  organized  and  con- 
ducted their  "Underground  Railroad"  with  its  many 
branches  reaching  from  the  border  of  slavery  to  the  free- 
dom of  Canada. 

Nothing  can  so  fully  illustrate  the  change  of  senti- 
ment in  the  South  from  the  time  of  Jefferson  to  the 
time  of  Lincoln  as  the  widely  diverging  opinion  of  the 
South  regarding  the  two  men.  Thomas  Jefferson  in  his 
day  was  the  idol  of  the  South,  its  pride,  its  love,  and  its 
mentor;  Abraham  Lincoln  during  his  lifetime,  to  the 
South  and  to  the  anti-war  wing  of  the  Democratic  party 
at  the  North,  was  a  tyrant  and  a  fool.  "Gorilla  in  the 
White  House,"  "Fool  Jester  in  the  Capitol,"  Black 
Abolition  Tyrant  at  Washington"  are  only  a  few  of  the 
dainty  compliments  that  I  have  heard  and  read  that  were 
passed  upon  him  on  account  of  his  slavery  idea. 

And  yet  Jefferson  and  Lincoln  stood  upon  identically 
the  same  ground  as  far  as  the  question  at  issue  was  con- 
cerned. Both  insisted  slavery  should  not  be  extended 
into  new  territory,  and  both  looked  upon  it  as  a  bearable 
evil,  where  it  had  been  already  established.  Jefferson  was 
the  stronger  abolitionist  of  the  two:  he  advocated  active, 
legal  enactments  to  kill  it  where  it  was  established,  but 
Lincoln  did  not.  Yet  the  South  loved  the  former,  and 
at  the  commencement  of  the  war  hated  the  latter.  Today, 
however,  knowing  Lincoln  better,  it  joins  hands  with  the 
North  in  appreciation  of  his  life  and  work. 

Northerners  and  Southerners,  at  that  time,  mutually 
misunderstood  and  misjudged  each  other  as  a  whole,  as 
badly  and  as  wrongfully  as  the  latter  had  misunderstood 
and  misjudged  our  martyred  Lincoln.  The  average  North- 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  241 

erner  looked  upon  the  Southerner  as  a  braggart,  void  of 
kindness,  eourage,  or  any  sense  of  justice  or  mercy;  one 
who  with  passion  and  without  pity  was  by  cruelty  and 
craft  forcing  from  the  black  man  the  means  of  his  wealth 
and  luxury.  The  Southerner  looked  upon  the  Northerner 
as  a  crude,  uncouth  money-getter,  whose  aspirations  and 
ideas  never  rose  above  the  material  wealth  he  was  tying 
up ;  who  did  not  for  the  world  dare  meet  a  Cavalier  in 
conflict,  and  who  would  not,  had  he  dared,  leave  his  dol- 
lars to  fight  for  any  cause  whatever,  and  especially  not 
for  such  a  non-cash-producing  idea  as  patriotism. 

Both  sides  were  wrong;  both  paid  for  their  mistake 
in  conflict,  in  disaster,  in  defeat,  and  in  death.  On  the 
bloody  soil  of  over  six  hundred  hard-fought  fields  of  a 
fratricidal  battle-line  that  stretched  its  gory  length  from 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  at  the  East  to  the  Rocky  Mountains 
at  the  West,  they  learned  to  know  and  appreciate  each 
other.  When  the  final  shot  was  fired  at  Appomattox,  no 
two  separate  classes  of  men  in  the  world  entertained 
greater  mutual  respect  and  admiration  for  each  other  than 
the  men  in  blue  and  the  men  in  gray,  who,  all  over  the 
country,  in  spirit,  shook  hands  and  wished  a  mutual 
"Good-bye  and  God-speed." 

Had  they  in  1861  known  each  other  as  they  did  in  1865 
there  would  have  been  no  Civil  War.  I  testify,  with  the 
confidence  of  knowledge  and  the  experience  of  half  a 
century,  that  next  after  the  men  these  soldiers  fought  and 
marched  with,  the  men  of  the  Confederate  Camps  South 
and  the  Union  Posts  North  respect  and  enjoy  meeting  the 
men  they  fought  against. 


242  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

During  my  boyhood  and  early  manhood  the  system 
of  slavery  was  firmly  entrenched  in  the  Union,  and  held 
therein  a  seemingly  impregnable  position.  Very  few 
persons,  North  or  South,  dared  question  the  right  to 
slaves  in  the  states  where  they  existed,  and  opposition 
to  the  extension  of  slavery  was  neither  organized  nor 
popular.  The  slave  Institution,  however,  was  thoroughly 
organized,  energetic,  arrogant,  domineering,  and  efficient 
in  politics.  It  passed  fugitive  slave  laws  and  enforced 
them  through  the  North,  many  times  with  circumstances 
of  brutality  that  aroused  the  opposition  of  those  who  had 
heretofore  been  tolerant.  This  was  one  of  the  first  and 
minor  mistakes  that  the  Institution  made.  Chasing  its 
slaves  into  Northern  territory  and  exhibiting  the  system 
to  the  Northern  people,  thus  compelling  them  to  look  it 
in  the  face  and  think  about  it,  was  a  mistake  that  scattered 
wide  the  seeds  of  the  coming  Civil  War ;  but  the  Southern 
leaders  were  so  certain  that  the  North  would  not  dare 
resist  that  they  persisted  in  the  blunder.  The  Missouri 
Compromise,  at  this  time,  alone  prevented  the  slave 
Institution  from  overflowing  its  boundaries,  settling  where 
it  would,  and  establishing  itself  where  it  wished. 

The  election  of  1852,  which  took  place  when  I  was 
twelve  years  old,  illustrates  and  proves  the  power  of  the 
Institution  at  that  time.  Franklin  Pierce,  the  candidate 
of  the  Democratic  party  which  the  South  controlled,  car- 
ried at  that  election  all  but  four  of  the  then  thirty-one 
states.  Out  of  two  hundred  and  ninety-six  electoral 
votes,  two  hundred  and  fifty-four  were  in  his  favor.  After 
such  an  election  no  wonder  the  slave  Institution  thought 
that  it  could  do  anything  it  saw  fit  to  undertake.  No 
wonder   the   slave-holders   thought   the   Missouri    Com- 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  243 

promise  a  bar  to  their  triumphant  progress,  and  wished 
it  cleared  away.  They  did  once  more  what  with  them 
was  an  old  proceeding — dangled  the  bright  hope  of  the 
presidency  before  the  eyes  of  the  Northern  man  who 
would  do  their  work  for  them.  Thus  Hon.  Steven  A. 
Douglas  reached  for  the  prize,  did  their  bidding,  and  was 
by  them,  at  the  Democratic  convention  in  Charleston  in 
i860,  slaughtered  in  payment  for  his  services.  Many  be- 
lieved Douglas  died  soon  after  of  a  broken  heart  as  a 
result  of  his  disappointed  aspirations. 

What  small  events  often  produce  great  results ! 
Douglas'  defeat  was  caused  by  the  answer  regarding  slav- 
ery that  Lincoln  forced  from  him  at  Freeport,  Illinois, 
in  the  senatorial  debate  of  1858.  Had  Douglas  been 
nominated,  he  would  have  been  elected,  for  nothing  then 
could  have  withstood  the  united  Democratic  party ;  there 
would  have  been  no  secession  at  that  time,  and  what 
would  have  been  the  history  of  our  country  no  man  can 
guess. 

If  the  enforcement  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was 
a  mistake,  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  by  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  in  1854  was  a  blunder.  As  safely 
might  one  throw  a  piece  of  meat  between  two  starving 
dogs  and  expect  them  to  remain  quiet  as  to  open  up  the 
territories  to  Douglas  "Squatter  Sovereignty"  and  expect 
the  two  sections  of  our  country  to  shrink  from  the  strife 
for  the  rich  prize. 

Kansas,  situated  above  the  Missouri  Compromise  line 
of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thirty  minutes  north,  was  the 
first  pawn  in  the  game  of  events.  The  North  immediately 
decided  if  it  was  to  be  a  free  or  slave  state,  depending 


244  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

upon  who  first  settled  there,  it  should  be  free ;  even  if  it 
had  to  deplete  its  population  to  make  it  so.  The  New 
England  Emigrant  Society  and  others  of  a  like  nature 
were  organized,  and  a  long  line  of  emigrants  with  their 
families  started  for  new  homes  in  Kansas.  Then  the 
South  discovered  its  error.  If  colonization  was  to  decide 
the  fate  of  the  new  territory,  it  could  not  compete  with 
the  North;  slave  holders  did  not  dare  to  migrate  and 
risk  their  slaves  to  the  uncertain  results ;  and  if  men  who 
were  not  slave  holders  were  sent  from  the  South  they 
were  apt  to  become  anti-slavery  in  their  new  surround- 
ings and  vote  accordingly,  as  they  had  already  done  in 
California. 

The  Institution  was  thus  beaten  on  the  issue  of 
"Squatter  Sovereignty,"  but  it  would  not  give  up  the  fight. 
It  had  two  weapons  left,  its  Congress  and  its  President. 
It  still  refused  to  admit  Kansas  except  as  a  slave  state  on 
a  constitution  modeled  after  that  of  Missouri,  and  adopted 
by  the  help  of  Missouri  men  whose  only  home  in  Kansas 
was  the  saddle.  Nor  did  it  become  a  State  until  1861, 
after  Lincoln's  election,'  when  a  greater  question  super- 
seded and  overshadowed  it. 

"Squatter  Sovereignty"  and  the  Kansas  fight  dis- 
rupted every  political  party  in  the  country.  Even  the 
great  Democratic  party  was  split  in  halves.  All  over 
the  North,  without  convention,  organization,  or  pre-ar- 
rangement,  appeared  as  if  by  magic,  Anti-Kansas-Ne- 
braska men,  who,  disregarding  all  previous  issues  and 
adopting  the  disused  title  of  Republicans,  organized  them- 
selves into  the  first  distinctly  Anti-Slavery  Party  that 
succeeded  in  carrying  an  electoral  vote.  So  good  an  ac- 
count did  these  men  give  of  themselves  in  the  presiden- 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  245 

tial  election  of  1856,  which  came  in  the  midst  of  the 
Kansas  contest,  that  they  took  the  popular  vote  away 
from  the  Democratic  nominee  and  carried  most  of  the 
free  States. 

But  the  slave  Institution  was  doomed  to  commit  one 
more  blunder.  This  was  accomplished  when  Judge  Taney, 
one  of  its  principal  upholders  and  Chief  Justice  of. the 
Supreme  Court,  rendered  judgment  in  the  Dred  Scott 
Case  in  1857.  His  technical  decision  put  the  appellant, 
Dred  Scott,  out  of  court  on  the  ground  that  "a  slave  or 
the  descendant  of  a  slave,  could  not  be  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  or  have  any  standing  in  federal  courts." 
In  the  obiter  dictum  of  the  opinion,  he  said  that  the  negro 
was  "so  far  inferior  that  he  had  no  rights  the  white  man 
was  bound  to  respect."  The  history  and  conditions  of 
the  case  were  such  that  the  decision  really  meant  legally : 
First,  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  unconstitutional, 
as  the  purpose  of  the  constitution  was  the  protection  of 
property,  and  slaves  were  recognized  as  property  by  that 
document.  Therefore  Congress  was  bound  to  protect,  not 
prohibit,  slavery  in  the  territories.  Second,  that  a  slave- 
holder could  bring  a  slave  into  any  Northern  state,  or 
into  every  free  territory,  and  keep  him  there  for  years, 
and  yet  carry  him  away,  still  a  slave,  whenever  he  saw 
fit  to  return  South. 

This  was  the  last  straw  that  broke  the  back  of  many  a 
man's  love  for  his  old  Democratic  party  and  sent  him 
rendering  into  the  Republican  ranks.  This  position  of 
Judge  Taney  was  as  far  from  that  of  Thomas  Jefferson 
on  the  question  of  slavery,  as  one  pole  of  the  earth  is 
from  the  other,  but  it  was  adopted  by  the  South.  Thus 
the  issue  between  the  North  and  the  South  was  joined. 


246  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  Republican  party  and  the  mass  of  the  Northern 
people  held  the  Jeffersonian  view,  that  slaves  were  not 
property  but  persons  held  to  service  by  local  state  laws, 
whose  liberty  in  the  territories  it  was  the  duty  of  Congress 
to  protect. 

It  was  upon  these  issues,  thus  joined,  that  the  two 
great  parties  fought  the  next  presidential  campaign.  So 
many  Democratic  recruits  did  the  new  party  gain  that  in 
i860  the  first  person  in  the  history  of  the  United  States 
who  was  not  a  slave  owner,  or  who  in  effect — by  affilia- 
tion and  official  ideas — was  not  a  pro-slavery  man,  Ab- 
raham Lincoln,  won  the  presidential  election. 

The  result  of  this  election  surprised  the  North  and 
astonished  the  South.  It  seemed  impossible  that  the  Insti- 
tution, by  its  change  of  front  on  the  slavery  question  from 
the  position  of  Thomas  Jefferson  to  that  of  Judge  Taney, 
had  so  alienated  and  affronted  the  North  that  the  con- 
trol of  the  government,  which  the  Democrats  held  in  1852 
by  a  majority  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-four  electoral 
votes  out  of  two  hundred  and  sixty-nine,  had  been  lost 
to  them  so  woefully  that  in  i860  they  controlled  only 
seventy-two  such  votes  out  of  three  hundred  and  three. 

When  the  election  came  the  legislature  of  South 
Carolina,  convened  to  designate  its  presidential  electors, 
remained  in  session  until  the  returns  from  the  general 
election  announced  that  Lincoln  was  elected.  Then,  on 
November  10th,  it  called  a  convention  to  consider  the 
question  of  secession.  This  convention  passed  an  ordinance 
of  secession,  and  proceeded  to  form  a  separate  state  gov- 
ernment ;  to  enact  laws ;  to  elect  officials ;  to  establish  an 
army  and  navy;  and  to  perform  all  the  acts  of  an  inde- 


THE  FREEING  OE  THE  NEGRO  247 

pendent  nation.  Six  other  states  followed  immediately. 
On  February  8th,  1861,  the  "Confederate  States  of  Amer- 
ica" was  born  and  the  government  established  at  Mont- 
gomery, Alabama. 

Less  than  ninety  days  after  the  news  of  the  result  of 
the  election  could  have  reached  the  Southern  states,  they 
had  seceded,  formed  state  conventions,  elected  delegates 
to  a  national  convention,  and  formed  a  new  nation.  This 
was  such  an  expedition  of  attained  results  that  it  pointed, 
almost  conclusively,  to  a  thoroughly  pre-arranged  plan. 

In  vain  Lincoln  pleaded  with  the  Southern  states,  and 
showed  them  he  stood  on  less  anti-slavery  grounds  than 
Thomas  Jefferson,  and  that  no  formidable  party  thought 
of  interfering  with  the  Institution  where  it  was  already 
established.  In  vain  was  it  pointed  out  that  their  slaves 
would  be  less  safe  should  the  North  be  a  foreign  country, 
like  Canada.  They  considered  not  that  they  still  con- 
trolled the  House,  the  Senate,  and  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  that  no  laws  could  be  passed  to  injure  them  should 
injury  be  intended.  The  Institution  still  held  three  out 
of  the  four  departments  of  our  government,  but  that  was 
not  sufficient.  They  must  have  all  four  or  none.  Nothing 
could  prevent  their  separation :  it  was  inevitable,  and  the 
crime  was  perpetrated.  "Verily,  Verily,"  the  axiom  still 
obtains,  now  as  two  thousand  years  ago : 
"Whom  the  Gods  would  destroy,  they  first  make  mad." 


248  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  XIV 
WHEN  THE  "JUBILEE"  CAME 

It  is  a  peculiar  fact  that  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion, at  the  time  it  was  issued,  effected  the  practical  free- 
dom of  very  few  slaves  in  the  United  States.  The  prac- 
tical freeing  of  the  slaves  was  a  progressive  movement. 
It  commenced  in  the  East  in  May,  1861,  when  General 
Butler  fixed  the  condition  of  the  negro  as  a  "contraband 
of  war,"  and  in  the  West  in  August  when  General  Fre- 
mont issued  his  "confiscation  and  emancipation"  procla- 
mation; it  was  furthered  when  Congress,  March  3rd, 
1862,  passed  an  act  forbidding,  under  penalty  of  dismissal, 
any  officer  of  the  army  from  returning  fugitive  slaves  to 
their  masters;  it  was  foretold  in  Lincoln's  proclamations 
of  September  11,  1862,  and  January  1,  1863,  and  it  was 
finally  legally  consummated  by  the  ratification  of  the 
Thirteenth  Amendment  November  18,  1865.  But  all  of 
these  hopes  and  anticipations  together  with  their  ultimate 
fruition  would  not  have  been  worth  the  paper  they  were 
written  on  had  not  April  9th,  1865,  seen  Lee's  surrender  to 
Grant  at  Appomattox. 

It  is  true  that  Lincoln's  Proclamation  omitted  from 
its  application  the  loyal  slave  states  and  specified  portions 
of  the  disloyal  states.  This  made  a  legal  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  sections,  but  the  practical  working  out 
under  conditions  above  specified  amounted  to  almost  the 
difference  one  would  find  between  six  and  a  half  dozen. 
In  both  sections,  if  a  negro  wanted  freedom  and  had 
good  legs  and  a  small  amount  of  spunk,  all  he  had  to  do 
was  to  reach  the  union  lines  and  the  prize  was  won.  This 
was  true  because  slaves  of  rebel  masters  had  been  con- 


THE   FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  249 

fiscated  by  Congress  since  August,  1861,  and  even  if  his 
master  was  a  Union  man  no  officer  dare  give  him  the 
negro.  The  extent  of  the  authority  of  union  commanders 
was  to  make  a  record  of  the  fact  of  the  negro  coming 
into  the  lines  and  let  the  owner  bring  the  case  before 
congress  for  recompense.  This  proceeding  hurt  not  the 
negro  nor  benefited  the  master. 

Regarding  the  negroes  who  stayed  on  the  plantation, 
here  again  the  difference  between  the  two  sections  was 
legally  great  but  practically  small.  Both  in  loyal  and 
disloyal  states  the  Proclamation  when  promulgated  had 
no  effect  whatever,  because  to  the  former  it  did  not  apply 
and  in  the  latter  it  could  not  be  enforced  until  Lee's 
surrender.  After  the  close  of  the  war  the  parts  of  the 
country  disloyal  January  1st,  1863,  were  legally  com- 
pelled to  pay  their  former  slaves  wages,  while  those  at 
that  time  loyal  still  continued  slavery  conditions  until 
the  thirteenth  amendment  demolished  the  Institution.  This 
difference  was  apparent  more  than  real,  for  the  southern 
planter  then  seldom  paid  more  wages  than  it  would  cost 
to  keep  the  negroes  in  food  and  clothes  during  slavery 
times. 

It  follows,  then,  that  there  could  have  been  no  one 
time  of  general  slave  rejoicing,  and  the  "Year  of  Jubilee" 
to  them  was  a  symbolic  exaltation  which  the  frecdmen 
met  at  various  times  and  under  such  circumstances  as 
the  advance  of  the  Federal  armies  and  the  laws  of  con- 
gress dictated. 

(  )f  all  the  people,  black  or  white,  living  in  the  North 
or  in  the  South,  the  negro  slaves  were  the  very  first  to 
realize  that  the  result  of  the  war  was  to  be  their  freedom. 


2SO  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Hcfw  they  came  by  that  idea  is  one  of  the  unexplainable 
things  of  that  time.  They  did  not  get  it  from  their 
masters,  for  all  the  information  they  received  from  that 
source  was  certainly  very  uncomplimentary  to  us.  We 
were  represented  to  the  negroes  as  savages  who  would 
kill  them  and  commit  all  sorts  of  atrocities  upon  them; 
they  were  told  that  we  were  so  low  down  in  the  animal 
creation  we  had  not  yet  shed  the  horns  of  our  bestial  fore- 
fathers. 

The  colored  people  did  not  get  the  idea  of  liberty  from 
us,  because  we  ourselves  did  not  believe  they  were  to  be 
made  free.  Sometimes  I  have  heard  the  "Unpleasant- 
ness" of  1861  to  1865,  called  the  "War  of  Emancipation." 
Never  was  there  a  greater  mistake,  either  as  relating  to 
the  masses  of  the  people  of  the  North  or  to  the  soldiers 
who  fought  their  battles  in  the  South.  I  believe  my  com- 
pany represented  fairly  the  sentiment  of  the  Union  army, 
and  among  its  one  hundred  men  there  was  only  one 
abolitionist,  only  one  who  believed  the  slaves  should  be 
free  and  thought  that  the  war  would  have  any  effect 
upon  their  condition.  The  other  boys  of  the  company 
were  so  scandalized  at  his  views  that  they  made  life 
miserable  for  him  by  many  petty  indignities  and  un- 
friendly acts.  But  one  day  he  aroused  himself  from  his 
usual  pacific  attitude ;  he  tackled  one  of  the  largest  and 
most  aggressive  of  his  tormentors,  threw  him  down  and 
sat  on  him  until  he  agreed  to  behave  himself.  For  the 
remainder  of  the  war  "Abolitionist"  retained  his  opinions 
in  peace. 

The  negroes  did  not  get  their  ideas  of  freedom  from 
us  or  from  their  masters,  yet  they  had  them  throughout 


THE  FREEING  OE  THE  NEGRO  251 

the  South   from  the  center  to  the  coniference  of  slave 

territory.  I  looker  Washington  relates  how  the  slaves  in 
South  Carolina  sang, 

"Well  soon  be  free 
We'll  soon  be  free 
When  dc  Lord  ivill  call  us  home." 

and  with  so  much  fervor  and  apparent  application  that 
the  authorities  stopped  the  singing.  He  also  says,  "I  re- 
member well  a  time  when  I  was  awakened  one  morning, 
before  the  break  of  day,  by  my  mother  bending  over  me 
where  I  lay  on  a  bundle  of  rags  in  the  corner  of  my 
master's  kitchen,  and  hearing  her  pray  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  his  soldiers  might  be  successful  and  that  she 
and  I  might  one  day  be  free." 

My  cavalry  regiment  often  penetrated  far  into  con- 
federate territory  in  Tennessee,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi 
where  never  a  Yankee  soldier  had  been  seen  before. 
There,  despite  the  diabolical  descriptions  of  our  persons 
and  characteristics  which  their  masters  had  given  of  us, 
we  always  found  the  slaves  with  grinning  teeth  and 
shining  eyes  waiting  to  welcome  our  coming.  So  many 
would  often  want  to  return  to  our  lines  with  us  that  they 
would  have  to  be  refused  for  fear  of  encumbering  and 
retarding  the  movements  of  our  column  so  far  inside  the 
enemy's  territory. 

That  the  welcome  we  thus  met  was  not  caused  by  any 
fear  or  any  ideas  of  personal  conciliation,  is  undisputably 
demonstrated  when  in  the  place  of  appearing  to  them  in 
the  pomp  of  an  irresistible  force,  one  of  our  number 
came  to  any  of  their  cabins  as  an  escaped  prisoner,  help- 
less,   friendless,    exhausted,    starving,    his   welcome   was 


252  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

instant  and  cordial.  Under  such  circumstances  of  need 
the  relief  rendered  to  him  was  limited  only  by  the  content 
of  the  cabin  and  the  ability  of  the  host.  These  humble 
black  men  would  shelter  my  escaped  comrade,  give  him 
all  their  rations  if  necessary  and  risk  floggings  and  even 
their  lives  to  guide  him  on  his  way. 

In  grateful  appreciation  of  such  aid  rendered  to  many 
of  my  fellow  soldiers  during  the  war,  I  wish  here  to 
make  this  remarkable  record :  In  the  thousands  of  cases 
where  such  application  must  have  been  made  to  them, 
not  once  did  I  ever  hear  of  my  comrades  being  betrayed 
to  the  Southern  master  or  the  Confederate  patrol,  or  ever 
denied  the  relief  asked  if  it  was  possible  to  supply  it. 

The  feeling  of  the  negro  race  toward  their  masters 
was  passing  strange.  The  negro  longed  for  freedom. 
He  had  waited  for  it,  had  prayed  for  it.  To  acquire  it 
he  was  willing  to  undergo  any  privation,  to  endure  any 
hardship,  to  suffer  any  pain.  And  yet  he  seemed  to  hold, 
as  a  rule,  no  grudge  against  the  master  who  had  held  him 
in  slavery;  on  the  contrary,  there  was  often  a  feeling  of 
sympathy  and  sometimes  real  love  and  affection  between 
the  big  house  of  the  planter  and  the  cabin  of  the  slave. 
Many  a  body-servant  of  a  Confederate  soldier  has  faith- 
fully and  joyfully  followed  his  master  through  every 
suffering  which  the  long  war  brought,  not  flinching  even 
from  death  in  his  behalf. 

This  strange  sentiment  of  the  slave  was  demonstrated 
beyond  controversy  in  thousands  of  cases.  I  have  seen 
hundreds  of  plantations  where  every  white  man,  volun- 
tarily or  involuntarily,  had  gone  into  the  Confederate 
service,  and  the  negroes  alone  were  left  to  protect  the 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  253 

women  and  children  and  raise  the  crops.  In  all  the 
South,  I  have  never  heard  of  a  case  where  absence  of 
the  master  was  taken  advantage  of  by  the  slave  to  abuse 
persons  or  destroy  property.  Heaven  knows  the  negro 
has  sins  and  failures  in  plenty  to  answer  for,  but  when 
they  are  all  charged  up  against  him  let  this  record  I  have 
made  be  not  forgotten. 

There  was  one  thing  the  negro  did  not  do  for  the 
Confederacy,  he  did  not  fight  for  it  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Confederate  army.  True  it  is,  a  company  of  negroes  was 
organized  for  the  Confederate  service  at  Memphis,  Ten- 
nessee, and  a  regiment  of  blacks  in  New  Orleans  for  the 
same  purpose,  but  I  was  on  duty  at  headquarters  in 
Memphis  where  it  was  our  business  to  know  the  military 
history  of  the  city,  and  we  were  informed,  beyond  all 
doubt,  that  this  company  was  disbanded  before  going 
into  service. 

In  regard  to  the  New  Orleans  regiment,  I  was  told  by 
a  one-time  colored  sergeant  of  one  of  our  own  negro 
regiments,  now  a  very  intelligent  man  of  wealth  and 
standing  in  his  community,  that  he  knew  the  facts  of  the 
organization  of  this  regiment  and  that  he  had  served  in 
the  army  with  some  of  its  members.  He  was  certain  that 
the  only  fighting  any  of  the  soldiers  of  that  command 
ever  did  was  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  of  Old  Glory 
after  they  had  renounced  the  Confederate  flag  and  had 
reorganized  themselves  as  the  First  Louisiana  Native 
Guards  under  General  Butler.  They  had  the  honor  to 
be  the  first  regiment  of  colored  troops  to  fight  for  the 
Union. 


254  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

I  do  not  say  the  negroes  were  of  no  help  to  the  Con- 
federacy, for  they  were  of  the  greatest  assistance.  They 
raised  the  provisions,  built  the  fortifications,  drove  the 
teams,  cooked  the  food,  and  filled  numberless  vocations 
which,  except  for  them,  would  have  taken  active,  fighting 
men  from  the  ranks.  But  as  a  Confederate  soldier,  in 
Confederate  gray  or  at  the  battle  front,  I  have  yet  to 
hear  he  was  ever  found. 

Nothing  can  so  forcibly  demonstrate  the  absolute  lack 
of  anything  like  the  idea  of  vindictive  retaliation  for 
wrongs  committed  by  the  whites  upon  the  negroes  as  the 
circumstance  told  by  a  Confederate  colonel  who  was 
captured  by  negro  troops  on  the  disastrous  Sturgis  Expe- 
dition in  Northern  Mississippi.  It  was  about  the  time  of 
the  "Fort  Pillow  Massacre,"  when  the  Confederates  were 
accused  of  slaughtering  the  negro  soldiers  after  surrender 
and  afterwards  threatening  they  would  take  no  prisoners, 
white  or  black,  in  any  movement  wherewith  black  soldiers 
were  connected.  At  the  very  moment  of  the  incident 
mentioned  the  Southern  troops  were  needlessly  killing  the 
defeated,  disorganized,  and  exhausted  Northern  soldiers, 
black  and  white,  of  the  Sturgis  command.  Surely,  if  a 
black  man  could  feel  vindictive  and  disposed  to  ratalia- 
tion,  it  would  be  then. 

At  this  time  and  under  these  conditions,  this  Confed- 
erate Colonel  ordered  his  men  to  charge  upon  a  detach- 
ment of  negroes  who,  in  the  disaster  and  defeat  of  the 
day,  had  still  preserved  their  organization.  Waving  his 
saber,  he  led  them  to  the  attack;  but  the  negroes  re- 
ceived his  men  with  such  a  fierce  fire  that  the  attacking 
party  concluded  to  postpone  to  a  more  convenient  season 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  255 

the  killing  of  that  bunch  of  darkies.  Thus  the  colonel 
found  himself  alone,  surrounded  by  colored  troops  with 
loaded  guns  pointed  at  his  breast.  He  instantly  threw 
down  his  saber  and  said,  "Good  God,  gentlemen,  don't 
kill  me !"  Did  the  black  soldiers  then  tally  one  score  in 
revenge  for  the  Fort  Pillow  Massacre?  Did  they  even 
remember  the  hundreds  of  their  helpless  comrades  who 
had  been  killed  that  day?  No,  negro-like,  all  was  for- 
gotten, and  the  black  sergeant  threw  up  the  muzzles  of  the 
pointing  guns  saying,  "Ya!  Ya!  Don't  shoot,  boys.  Dat's 
de  fust  time  de  likes  of  him  ever  called  de  likes  of  us 
gentlemen."  They  brought  him  safely  and  civilly  a 
prisoner  to  camp.  This  is  no  hearsay  evidence  I  have  been 
relating.  I  wish  it  were,  for  I  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
there  and  the  multiplied  horrors  of  that  day  have  been 
with  me  more  than  half  a  century. 

Why  was  it  that  the  ex-slave  seemed  to  be  without 
such  retaliatory  feelings  toward  his  former  masters?  It 
was  not  because  he  did  not  realize  the  wrong  of  Slavery 
— his  determination  for  freedom  proved  that.  It  was  not 
because  he  lacked  courage — the  perils  he  risked  for 
escaped  prisoners  and  the  records  of  many  battlefields 
proved  that.    What  then  was  the  cause? 

If  I  were  to  attempt  to  guess  the  unguessable  or  ex- 
plain the  unexplainable,  I  would  hazard  the  idea  that  the 
negro,  by  some  instinctive  sense,  realized  his  immediate 
master  was  not  alone  responsible  for  the  wrongs  com- 
mitted upon  him,  but  that  their  source  lay  far  back  in 
some  force,  or  law,  or  Institution,  that  controlled  master 
and  slave  alike.  If  that  was  his  thought,  may  it  not  be 
a  correct  answer  to  the  conundrum? 


256  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  Civil  War  by  its  resulting  conditions  and  forced 
military  necessity,  liberated  about  three  millions  slaves- 
slaves,  who  for  generations  had  toiled  for  others  with 
never  a  thought  of  tomorrow;  slaves,  whose  idea  of  the 
difference  between  slavery  and  freedom  was :  a  slave 
would  be  compelled  to  work,  but  a  freeman  could  rejoice 
in  idleness;  slaves  who  possessed  not  one  cent  in  money 
and  did  not  even  own  the  clothes  on  their  backs.  They 
were  slaves,  without  education,  whose  knowledge  of  the 
wofld  was  that  of  a  child,  and  who  were  disposed  to  put 
full  confidence  in  any  who  claimed  to  be  their  friends — 
slaves,  to  whom  freedom  loomed  up  before  them  as  one 
long,  glorious,  continual  holiday. 

Before  you  blame  the  negro  for  his  opinion  upon  the 
question  of  labor,  remember  he  came  by  it  honestly.  He 
learned  it  from  his  master  and  his  master's  friends,  who 
considered  work  was  a  deep  disgrace.  A  proof  of  this  last 
statement  is  an  interview  that  took  place  between  General 
Rosecrans  at  Corinth,  Mississippi,  and  some  near-by 
planters,  while  my  company  was  body  guard  for  that 
General.  These  planters  called  to  complain  that  their 
slaves  were  leaving  them  and  that  they  were  short  of 
hands  to  secure  their  crops,  and  demanded  help  in  the 
matter.  The  General  could  see  no  way  in  which  he 
could  assist  them.  They  then  said,  "But  what  can  we  do 
General  ?" 

Rosecrans  replied,  "I  do  not  see  but  what  you  will 
have  to  do  as  we  do  in  the  North,  go  to  work  yourself." 
"Work !"  they  answered,  "Work !  We  want  you  to  under- 
stand, General,  that  before  we  would  degrade  ourselves 
by  going  to  work,  we  will  take  a  pistol  and  go  on  the  road 
and  rob  travelers." 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  257 

Such  being  the  opinions  of  the  masters,  what  could  be 
expected  of  newly  liberated  slaves?  Is  it  any  wonder 
there  was  confusion?  Is  it  any  surprise  there  should  be 
disappointment?  Is  it  strange  there  should  be  unrest? 
The  only  surprising  or  strange  thing  about  the  whole 
matter  was  that  there  was  not  more  confusion,  Sis- 
appointment  and  unrest  than  actually  took  place.  The 
surprise  is  that  revolution  and  bloodshed  did  not  appear 
in  their  most  direful  form.  Many  Southerners  expected 
such  an  uprising;  as  preparation  for  it  they  tried  to  buy 
Spencer  carbines  of  us,  which  were  at  that  time  the  only 
magazine  rifle  and  the  most  efficient  firearm  in  use. 

The  actions  of  the  negroes  when  they  ascertained 
they  were  free  were  as  varied,  as  grotesque,  and  as  tragic 
as  the  various  conditions  under  which  freedom  found 
them.  On  the  better  plantations  where  the  masters  had 
the  confidence  of  their  slaves,  they  were  called  together, 
frankly  told  they  were  free,  and  at  liberty  to  go  where 
they  would ;  but  at  the  same  time  they  were  told  that  if 
they  would  remain  on  the  old  place  and  work  as  before, 
they  would  be  paid  their  wages.  Where  this  was  done 
they  remained,  as  a  rule,  and  things  moved  along  very 
much  as  of  old — even  the  old  title  of  master  not  being 
omitted  in  their  mutual  dealings.  In  one  case  where  the 
planter  told  his  old  slaves,  after  hiring  them,  "Now  you 
are  free,  I  don't  own  you  and  you  must  not  call  me  master 
any  more."  The  darkies  instantly  replied,  "Yes,  Massa ; 
we  understand,  Massa ;  we  won't  do  it  any  more,  Massa." 

In  other  places  where  there  was  not  immediate  and 
cordial  acknowledgment  of  their  freedom,  or  where  there 
was  no  confidence  existing  between  the  big  house  of  the 


258  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

whites  and  the  cabin  of  the  blacks,  the  negroes  left  the 
plantation  in  search  of  what  their  new-found  freedom 
had  in  store  for  them.  It  was  natural  when  they  were 
free  that  they  should  feel  there  should  be  some  change  in 
their  condition  to  prove  to  them  that  they  had  received 
their  long-hoped-for,  many-times-prayed- for  freedom.  If 
the  planters  acknowledged  their  freedom  and  paid  wages, 
the  negroes  were  generally  satisfied,  but  if  it  was  not 
done,  they  felt  that  they  must  test  the  question  themselves 
by  making  some  move  on  their  own  volition;  so  they 
often  wandered  away  from  better  conditions  to  poorer 
ones,  but  were  happy  because  the  change  had  proved  the 
glorious  truth  that  they  were  really  free.  After  so  try- 
ing their  fortunes  elsewhere,  there  was  a  disposition  to 
return  to  their  old  homes  if  conditions  there  were  bear- 
able. 

There  was  one  movement  of  these  ex-slaves  that  al- 
most amounted  to  a  general  migration.  The  negroes  who 
had  been  sold  from  the  Northeastern  slave  states  into 
the  West  and  Southwest,  wanted  to  return  to  the  places 
where  they  were  born,  and  where  their  friends  and  rel- 
atives still  lived.  These  filled  the  roads  and  crowded  the 
lines  of  transportation  until  the  government  had  to  ex- 
tend relief.  Mingled  with  these  also  were  those  who  had 
been  moved  by  their  masters  to  escape  the  Federal  armies. 

An  old  negro  related  to  me  the  circumstance  of  such 
attempted  removal.  His  master  had  resolved  to  push  his 
slaves  from  Mississippi  into  Texas  to  get  away  from  the 
Yankees  who  operated  about  Vicksburg.  Very  secretly 
he  brought  a  company  of  Confederate  cavalry  on  the 
plantation  after  dark,  and  made  arrangements.     Ten  of 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  259 

the  leading  negroes  the  master  thought  necessary  to  chain. 
If  that  were  done  he  thought  the  rest  would  go  without 
trouble.  The  plan  was  to  keep  everything  secret  until 
curfew,  then  when  all  were  in  their  cabins  and  asleep, 
quietly  to  call  these  men  one  by  one  to  the  house  and 
chain  them.  After  that  to  awake  the  rest  and  with  the 
aid  of  the  cavalry  get  them  on  a  boat  in  the  Mississippi 
River  near-by. 

Everything  moved  as  outlined  until  time  to  call  up 
the  men  to  be  chained.  Quietly  the  overseer  went  to  the 
cabin  of  the  first  man — he  was  not  there;  the  family  of 
Sambo  did  not  know  where  he  was — "He  went  to  bed 
at  curfew  and  then  got  up  and  went  out;  they  had  seen 
nothing  of  him  since."  At  the  cabins  of  the  other  selected 
men  the  same  scene  was  repeated ;  and  their  in  great  haste 
an  examination  of  all  the  negro  quarters  was  made ;  not 
an  able-bodied  negro  was  found  on  the  plantation.  "Boots 
and  saddles"  was  instantly  blown  in  the  cavalry  company, 
and  every  road  and  known  path  within  ten  miles  of  the 
place  was  patrolled  all  night  and  all  next  day,  but  not  a 
negro  was  found.  Thanks  to  a  hint  given  by  a  house 
servant  they  had  all  escaped  by  paths  known  only  to  the 
negroes  and  had  made  their  way  to  Port  Hudson  where 
they  found  Federal  troops  and  liberty. 

It  was  but  natural  that  these  simple-minded  folks 
should  look  to  the  men  who  freed  them  for  solution  of 
the  next  step  in  freedom.  So  many  others  followed  the 
example  of  the  negroes  from  this  plantation  and  crowded 
about  the  military  stations  that  it  was  necessary  to  make 
regular  details  and  assignments  to  care  for  them.  They 
were  set  to  work  on  abandoned  plantations,  hired  out  for 


260  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

wages  to  planters,  and  put  at  any  work  the  Government 
had,  connected  or  not  connected  with  the  army. 

We,  the  soldiers  in  the  ranks,  retained  a  great  many 
of  them  for  our  private  and  individual  use.  The  average 
man  hates  to  cook,  and  we  were  no  exception  to  that 
rule.  Our  culinary  department  was  not  systematised 
then  as  fully  as  it  was  later  in  the  World  War.  The 
company  with  us,  when  in  the  field,  was  divided  for  that 
purpose  into  self-assorted  squads.  The  members  of  these 
either  took  turns  in  cooking  or  "went  it  alone"  as  .they 
mutually  agreed  or  disagreed.  When  such  a  squad  found 
men  anxious  to  serve  them,  who  wanted  no  wages,  who 
thought  our  rations  were  luxurious,  who  were  willing  to 
wear  out  our  old  clothes  and  be  glad  of  the  chance,  the 
temptation  was  irresistible  to  install  one  as  cook  without 
demanding  any  credentials  as  "chef"  from  any  former 
employer.  The  results  of  such  indiscretion  were  usually 
satisfactory,  but  sometimes  were  astonishing.  There  was 
one  mutual-admiration  squad  named  "Casey,  Curley,  Pap 
and  Steers" — why  so  named,  nobody  knows.  These  four, 
and  no  more,  had  formed  a  closed  mess  of  their  own  and 
installed  a  colored  brother  by  the  name  of  Jack  as  their 
chef.  Jack  had  not  proved  altogether  satisfactory.  One 
thing,  his  coffee  failed  to  reach  the  proper  standard,  until 
one  evening  it  was  especially  fine.  The  boys  sat  around 
the  open-top  can  that  contained  it,  drinking  deeply  and 
extolling  its  excellences  until  "Steers,"  dipping  more 
deeply  into  the  beverage  than  the  others  had  done, 
brought  up  a  nondescript  article,  which  had  no  more 
than  been  brought  to  light  when  Jack  excitedly  exclaimed, 
"Fo  de  Lord  sake,  boys,  dat  da  is  my  sock."  The  squad, 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  261 

finally,  after  mature  consideration,  concluded  not  to  kill 
Jack  because- the  sock  had  perhaps  been  washed  before 
being  hung  over  the  open  coffee  kettle  to  dry. 

There  is  one  thing  I  wish  I  could  find  words  to  record ; 
it  is  a  matter  difficult  to  explain  and  harder  yet  to  under- 
stand. This  unsolved  problem  is  the  position  taken  on  the 
emancipation  question  by  many  of  the  extreme  Southern- 
ers of  the  Judge  Taney  school  of  thought.  They  were 
honest  and  sincere  in  their  idea  that  the  negro  was  hardly 
human — a  sort  of  half  step  between  animal  and  man. 
Upon  emancipation,  their  grievance  against  the  Govern- 
ment, and  their  serious  objection  to  the  proclamation, 
was  the  unfairness  and  (as  they  thought)  cruelty  of  the 
act  that  had  deprived  the  negro  of  his  only  natural  pro- 
tector, his  former  owner,  not  the  fact  that  the  planter 
had  been  deprived  of  his  property. 

This  idea  of  the  doubtful  humanity  of  the  negro  died 
hard  in  the  South ;  it  has  not  expired  yet.  Within  the 
last  decade  I  have  heard  Southern  men  cursing  their  state 
officers  for  the  useless  expenditure  of  so  much  money  in 
"educating  baboons,"  as  some  still  want  to  consider  the 
negroes.  Yet  these  men  were  not  all  of  them  hard  mas- 
ters or  the  enemies  of  the  negroes  personally,  as  you 
might  expect  them  to  be;  the  fact  was  frequently  the 
reverse  with  the  honest  planter.  The  thought  that  his 
slaves  were  helpless,  depending  absolutely  upon  him  for 
everything,  aroused  his  chivalry  and  frequently  made 
him  the  kindest  of  masters  and  the  strongest  of  pro- 
tectors  for  them. 

Under  this  view  of  the  case  there  could  be  no  caste 
lost  in  his  associations  with  them.     Any  one  can  fondle 


262  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

and  be  as  kind  to  his  dog  or  his  horse  as  he  wishes ;  they 
were  animals,  and  mixing  with  them  as  he  may,  he  low- 
ers not  himself ;  upon  some  grounds  like  this  he  might 
cherish  and  be  intimate  with  his  slaves,  yet  not  degrade 
himself.  The  life-long  friendship  between  master  and 
black  man,  so  often  seen  in  slavery  times,  was  formed 
on  that  basis  and  was  so  mutually  accepted  by  both. 

Senators  Vardaman  and  Tillman,  it  would  seem,  were 
men  of  this  type ;  they  did  not  believe  in  the  advance  of 
the  negro  as  a  race,  but  their  intimate  relations  with  him 
were  kindly  and  generous.  Richard  Carrol,  who  was  a 
negro  worker  and  the  founder  of  an  industrial  home  for 
negro  orphans  in  South  Carolina,  told  Booker  Washing- 
ton that  Senator  Tillman  had  been  his  constant,  personal 
friend  and  assistant  in  all  he  had  attempted  to  do  for  the 
negro  race.  Even  Judge  Taney,  who  on  the  Supreme 
Court  bench  rendered  the  extreme  decision  that  negroes 
were  only  property,  gave  a  lie  to  his  own  rulings  by 
liberating  his  slaves. 

The  great  desire  of  the  f reedmen  was  for  land ;  their 
idea  of  heaven  upon  earth  was  to  possess  "forty  acres  and 
a  mule."  I  fear  it  was  the  greatest  mistake  of  the  gov- 
ernment that  it  did  not  see  they  achieved  it.  This  desire 
was  taken  advantage  of  by  many  white  rascals  and 
schemers,  but  principally  by  their  old  objects  of  aversion, 
the  "poor  white  trash"  of  the  South.  Now,  this  poor 
white  man  had  a  chance  to  pay  off  old  scores ;  the  negroes 
were  helpless  and  improvident — he  gladly  embraced  the 
opportunity.  Pretending  to  sell  the  freedman  land  was 
the  principal  source  of  the  rascal's  revenue.  Some  of 
them  would  sell  four  painted  sticks,  assuring  the  buyer 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  263 

that  they  came  from  Washington  and  by  federal  author- 
ity would  pass  title  to  him  for  the  forty  acres  they  might 
enclose.  The  negro  would  pay  his  hard-earned  dollars 
for  them,  and  then  set  one  at  each  of  the  four  corners 
of  the  best  piece  of  ground  he  could  find,  perhaps  in  the 
center  of  his  former  master's  best  field,  and  go  to  work 
upon  it  as  his  own  private  ground.  The  resulting  trouble 
that  this  poor  darkey  got  into  can  be  better  imagined  than 
described. 

Others  sold  certificates  of  purchase,  telling  the  buy- 
ers they  must  not  say  anything  about  it  until  time  was 
given  the  seller  to  see  that  proper  transfer  of  the  title 
was  made  at  Washington.  When  the  stipulated  time  had 
passed,  and  the  swindlers  had  cleaned  out  that  community 
and  gone  elsewhere,  the  negroes  would  produce  the  deeds 
to  their  holdings  for  perhaps  most  of  the  best  property 
of  the  whites  of  their  county.  The  wrath  of  the  whites 
and  the  despair  of  the  deluded  blacks  was  in  such  cases 
beyond  telling. 

As  soldiers  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  the  negroes 
made  an  enviable  record.  Over  a  hundred  and  seventy- 
eight  thousand  of  them  were  mustered  into  the  United 
States  service,  and  nearly  thirty-eight  thousand  were  re- 
ported killed,  wounded,  or  missing.  This  is  a  loss  of 
more  than  twenty-one  per  cent.  As  the  loss  in  the  whole 
Northern  Army,  during  the  entire  period  of  the  War  was 
about  twenty  per  cent;  and  as  the  negro  troops  were 
only  engaged  during  the  smaller  part  of  that  time,  it 
follows  that  the  loss  of  the  colored  troops,  length  of 
service  taken  into  consideration,  was  more  than  double 
that  of  their  white  comrades. 


264  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

They  helped  storm  Fort  Hudson;  they  successfully 
resisted  the  attack  of  a  superior  force  at  Milliken's  Bend ; 
they  assisted  in  the  ferocious  assault  on  Fort  Wagner, 
in  which  forty  per  cent  of  the  attacking  party  was  lost 
and  in  which  Sergeant  Carney,  though  wounded  four 
times,  carried  the  flag  of  his  regiment  across  an  open 
field  swept  by  a  fierce  rebel  fire  and  then  passed  it  to  his 
comrades  saying,  "Dey  got  me,  boys,  but  de  ol  flag  neber 
touched  de  ground."  They  fought  subsequently  at  Honey 
Hill,  South  Carolina;  at  Olustee,  Florida;  and  it  was  a 
negro  soldier  who,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  hauled  down 
the  flag  that  flew  over  the  capital  of  the  Confederacy  in 
Richmond.  This  honorable  service  shows  these  gallant 
soldiers  were  men,  not  property. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  265 

CHAPTER  XV. 
FIVE  DECADES  OF  LIBERTY 

When  General  Sheridan  threw  his  line  of  blue  across 
the  front  of  the  broken  and  exhausted  Confederate  army 
at  Appomattox  Court  House  on  the  ninth  day  of  April, 
1865,  and  compelled  Lee  to  make  formal  surrender  to 
Grant  in  McLean's  humble  cottage,  it  was  then,  and  not 
until  then,  that  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  made 
effective,  and  over  three  million  slaves  had  their  freedom 
made  secure.  Then  they  became  really  free — free  as  the 
wild  beasts  and  birds — free  as  the  white  man ;  but  un- 
like these,  they  had  never  learned  to  provide  for  them- 
selves. 

They  were  without  money,  without  property  of  any 
kind — even  the  clothes  on  their  backs  belonged  to  their 
masters — without  education,  without  experience,  and 
without  any  idea  whatever  of  self-protecting  care.  Worse 
than  all  (owing  to  the  example  of  the  masters)  they 
were  without  the  ability  to  discriminate  between  liberty 
and  idleness,  and  had  yet  to  learn  the  first  element  of  self- 
success,  "If  a  man  would  eat  he  must  work."  Yet  true 
to  his  race  and  his  temperament,  thinking  only  of  today 
and  never  of  tomorrow,  he  was  happy  as  the  blithest  lark 
that  ever  raised  his  cheery  notes  from  the  heights  of  the 
morning  sky.  He  had  one  thing  that  overbalanced  all 
these  handicaps — his  freedom. 

He  also  possessed  two  more  resources  that  he  did 
not  at  that  time  value,  but  which  in  the  end  became  his 
salvation:  First,  centuries  of  slave  life  had  taught  him 
to  work,  to  work  long  hours,  to  work  steadily  and  per- 


266  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

sistently  when  conditions  had  finally  convinced  him  that 
he  must.  Second,  he  had  acquired  the  habit  of  living  on 
one  peck  of  corn  and  three  pounds  of  pork  a  week,  and 
could  be  happy  over  it.  These  blind,  groping  millions  of 
new-made  freemen  needed  a  guiding  hand.  Who  would 
extend  it  to  them  ?  The  Emancipation  Proclamation  had 
released  the  Southern  planter  from  any  further  respons- 
ibility in  the  matter.  As  one  such  told  me,  and  he  spoke 
the  truth,  "When  you  set  the  slave  free  you  also  set  the 
owner  free."  Therefore  nothing  could  be  expected  right- 
fully from  that  source,  only  as  the  planter  could  make  the 
negro  profitable  to  himself  in  the  future  as  he  had  done 
in  the  past. 

But  help  for  these  helpless  people  must  come  from 
some  source.  Many  of  them  were  sick  or  decrepit  from 
old  age  or  accident,  and  unable  to  work  for  their  living. 
Who  should  care  for  them?  The  South  had  been  dis- 
charged from  that  responsibility  by  the  act  of  the  North 
in  depriving  the  masters  of  the  command  of  their  slaves ; 
and  even  were  they  disposed  to  care  for  them,  they  were 
too  impoverished  to  do  so.  In  many  cases  the  masters 
returned  to  their  homes  at  the  end  of  the  war  as  poor  as 
their  bondsmen  and  much  less  able  to  care  for  themselves. 

The  negro  himself  settled  the  controversy  as  to  who 
should  care  for  him,  by  looking  to  the  power  that  set 
him  free  to  tell  him  how  to  use  his  freedom.  This  solu- 
tion was  as  simple  as  it  was  just.  The  sociological  and 
financial  burden  that  was  thrown  upon  the  North  by 
emancipation  was  as  great,  in  many  respects,  as  the  one 
that  grew  out  of  secession.  The  North  met  that  respons- 
ibility   bravely    without    flinching;    generously,    without 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  267 

stint.  For  the  education,  protection,  and  uplifting  of  the 
negro,  it  poured  out  its  wealth  without  asking  return,  and 
gave  up  of  its  best  citizens  without  seeking  reward. 

But  in  this  great  work,  say  some  critics  and  many 
partisans,  "There  were  great  mistakes  made."  Certainly. 
The  infallible  mortal  has  never  been  found ;  and  when 
fallible  men  seek  to  solve  such  a  new,  and  difficult  prob- 
lem, mistakes  are  unavoidable.  There  was  misappropria- 
tion of  funds,  of  course.  Even  among  the  carefully 
selected,  twelve  apostles  of  Christ  there  was  one  grafter ; 
and  the  men  who,  in  the  stress  of  emergency,  selected 
the  workers  among  the  freedmen  in  the  South  may  con- 
gratulate themselves  that  the  defalcations  of  their  ap- 
pointees were  proportionately  not  more  than  one-tenth  as 
great  as  this. 

There  was  bickering  and  conflict  of  authority,  and 
quarreling  among  the  various  commissions,  schools,  and 
divisions.  This  is  true,  too  true.  But  the  person  who 
belongs  to  a  lodge  that  has  no  differences  of  opinion,  a 
church  that  has  no  quarrel,  or  a  political  party  without 
division,  let  him  cast  the  first  stone.  If  such  home  organi- 
zations formed  among  friends,  and  for  the  purposes  of 
their  own  good,  cannot  always  agree,  how  would  it  be 
possible  for  nation-wide  ones  composed  of  men  of  all 
creeds,  nationalities,  and  conditions,  who  sometimes  carry 
conflicting  instructions  covering  perhaps  overlapping 
territory,  be  expected  to  get  along  without  misunder- 
standings ? 

But  back,  beyond,  moving  and  overshadowing  these 
comparatively  petty  pitfalls  and  stumbling  blocks,  stood 
the  great  mass  of  the  Northern  people  firmly  insisting 


268  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

that  a  square  deal  for  the  greatest  good  for  the  greatest 
number  be  given.  I  am  proud  to  say  that  what  I  saw 
and  knew  of  its  work  during  the  war  and  the  record  of 
its  doings,  read  without  prejudice  or  partnership,  as  I 
have  tried  to  read  it,  proved  that  they  accomplished  their 
purpose  as  thoroughly  as  the  times  and  circumstances 
would  permit. 

Every  general  in  the  Union  army,  first  met  the  ques- 
tion and  struggled  with  it  in  various  ways.  Butler  at 
Fortress  Monroe  and  New  Orleans;  Hunter  in  Georgia 
and  Florida ;  Sherman  at  Port  Royal  and  Sea  Island ; 
Grant  in  the  Mississippi  valley ;  Fremont  at  St.  Louis ; 
and  indeed,  every  general  of  independent  or  semi-inde- 
pendent command,  wherever  located,  found  himself  with 
thousands  of  negroes  on  his  hands  to  tax  his  labors  by 
day  and  break  his  sleep  by  night. 

To  the  aid  of  these  perplexed  generals  came  societies 
like  the  Educational  Association  of  Boston,  the  National 
Freedman's  Relief  Association  of  New  York,  the  Friend's 
Association  of  Philadelphia,  and  kindred  organizations 
from  cities  of  any  size  all  over  the  North.  Many  of 
these  various  commissions  and  organizations  that  often 
interfered  with  and  overlapped  each  other,  had  all  their 
differences  adjusted  and  objects  harmonized  in  March, 
1865,  by  being  consolidated  into  the  Freedman's  Bureau 
under  supervision  and  control  of  the  United  States  War 
Department. 

This  Bureau  was  strongly  opposed  by  planters  in  the 
South  and  by  the  Democratic  Party  in  general.  The 
former  insisted  that  the  Bureau  placed  an  obstacle  be- 
tween the  negro  and  his  best  friend — the  Southern  man; 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  269 

and  the  latter  looked  upon  it  as  a  great  Republican  politi- 
cal machine,  set  up  needlessly,  extravagantly,  and  un- 
constitutionally. 

The  hostility  which  these  opposers  felt  toward  the 
Bureau,  and  the  Republican  Party  which  formed  and 
supported  it,  was  transferred  to  and  inflicted  upon  the 
generally  well-meaning,  self-sacrificing,  intelligent,  and 
frequently  cultured  agents  and  employees  of  that  organi- 
zation. Teachers,  male  and  female,  who  with  missionary 
zeal  devoted  themselves  to  the  education  of  the  negroes, 
found  the  doors  of  Southern  society,  and  even  Christian 
communion  effectually  closed  to  them.  So  strong  and 
far-reaching  was  the  opposition  and  prejudice  that  any 
family,  even  though  it  be  Southern  by  nativity  and  resi- 
dence, who  would  open  its  doors  to  these  "detestable  nig- 
ger teachers,"  would  be  as  completely  ostracized  as  the 
guests  these  families  had  entertained. 

The  officers  of  the  Bureau  also  had  no  sinecure  of 
easy  indulgence :  charges  of  nonfeasance,  misfeasance, 
and  malfeasance  were  constantly  being  hurled  against 
them  by  opposing  parties  at  all  times,  for  all  things,  and 
sometimes  for  nothing  at  all. 

Of  these  charges  some  were  doubtless  true,  but  many, 
very  many,  were  as  groundless,  as  foolish,  and  made  with 
as  little  investigation  as  the  resolution  introduced  in 
Congress  by  Fernando  Wood,  in  1870,  charging  General 
Howard,  among  other  things,  with  fraudulently  receiv- 
ing three  salaries :  one  as  general,  one  as  Commissioner 
of  the  Freedman's  Bureau,  and  one  as  head  of  Howard 
University.  The  slightest  investigation  would  have 
shown  that  the  accusations  were  false,  and  that,  like  all 


2;o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

other  officers  employed  by  the  Bureau,  the  only  pay  he 
received  was  that  to  which  he  was  entitled  by  virtue  of 
his  rank  in  the  army.  The  charges  must  have  been  made 
solely  for  political  effect.  Upon  an  investigation  by  a 
committee  appointed  by  Congress  the  General  was  not 
only  acquitted  but  complimented. 

General  O.  O.  Howard,  who  was  head  of  the  Freed- 
man's  Bureau,  had  commanded  the  right  wing  of  Sher- 
man's army  from  "Atlanta  to  the  sea,"  and  in  the  grand 
parade  at  Washington  rode  by  his  side  as  acknowledged 
equal.  He  was  not  only  a  skilled  and  trusted  officer,  but 
also  a  Christian  gentleman,  and  in  the  whole  army  no 
officer's  record,  word,  or  reputation  stood  higher.  No 
person  who  has  studied  his  history,  followed  the  Flag 
with  him,  and  entertained  him  at  his  own  table  as  I  have 
done,  could  ever  believe  he  would,  for  a  moment,  be 
knowingly  connected  with  anything  savoring  of.  corrup- 
tion. Errors  in  such  a  vast  government  were  certain, 
mistakes  unavoidable,  and  accidents  sure  to  happen,  but 
fraud,  by  him,  never  should  be  thought  of. 

He  divided  the  South  into  eleven  districts,  and  as 
Assistant  Commissioners  to  conduct  their  affairs,  ap- 
pointed eleven  well  known  and  approved  army  officers. 
The  Assistant  Commissioners  again  appointed  sub-offic- 
ers, largely  from  those  already  holding  commissions  in 
the  army.  These  appointments,  more  than  anything  else 
could  have  done,  assured  a  capable  and  honest  conduct  of 
affairs. 

Whatever  else  can  be  said  of  the  officers  of  the  army, 
the  rule  is  that  when  they  have  been  placed  in  charge  of 
affairs  of  this  kind  (in  the  Indian  Bureau  or  elsewhere) 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  271 

their  sense  of  honor  has  been  high,  their  sympathy  with 
their  charges  has  been  acute,  their  sense  of  justice  equit- 
able, and  their  temptation  to  go  wrong  zero.  They  had 
every  reason  to  do  their  best ;  their  future  promotion  and 
standing  in  the  army  depended  upon  their  success. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  South  ostracised  the 
negro  teachers  sent  them  by  the  Bureau  and  in  places 
burned  the  churches  and  schoolhouses  built  for  them, 
still  it  expended  on  education  alone,  between  June  1, 
1865,  and  September,  1871,  over  five  million  dollars.  At 
that  date  it  had  4239  schools,  9307  teachers,  and  247,333 
day  and  Sunday  pupils.  Other  charitable  Northern  organ- 
izations also  spent  for  the  same  purpose  large  amounts 
of  money  and  with  as  satisfactory  results. 

Relief  was  extended  to  all  who  needed  it,  black  or 
white,  Union  or  Secessionist  alike.  The  Bureau  pos- 
sessed at  various  times  sixty-seven  hospitals  and  asylums, 
at  which  were  treated  579,296  cases,  black  and  white; 
and  probably  over  a  million  cases  had  outside  treatment. 
Over  a  million  rations  were  distributed  to  needy  whites 
and  blacks,  and  nearly  eight  hundred  thousand  dollars 
were  expended  in  returning  these  persons  to  their  homes 
from  which  they  had  been  driven,  or  sending  them  where 
labor  could  be  obtained. 

The  Bureau  also  stood  as  "next  friend"  to  the  negro 
in  all  business  transactions;  made  his  contracts  and  saw 
that  they  were  fulfilled ;  secured  him  reasonable  wages 
and  saw  they  were  paid ;  appeared  for  him  in  court  when 
without  such  aid  he  could  not  have  enforced  his  rights ; 
and  at  all  times  tried  to  perform  the  object  of  its  mission. 
This  mission,  briefly  told,  was  to  sec  that  the  destitute 


272  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

of  any  color  were  helped,  and  that  the  condition  of  the 
black  man  did  not  become,  what  it  at  one  time  threatened 
to  be,  more  unendurable  under  freedom  than  it  had  been 
under  slavery. 

In  reckoning  the  sources  of  help  for  the  freedman, 
the  assistance  of  the  kindly  and  well-disposed  among  his 
former  masters  must  not  be  forgotten.  These  men  were 
then,  and  still  are,  the  negroes'  best  friends.  They  would 
have  been  glad  to  see  the  negro  collect  property  and  build 
a  home  for  his  family.  Some  of  them  were  willing  the 
black  man  should  testify  in  court,  and  even  vote,  pro- 
vided he  would  cast  his  ballot  as  the  white  man  wished. 

However,  judging  by  the  laws  passed  by  the  Southern 
state  governments  during  the  period  of  the  Johnsonian 
Plan,  when  they  might  and  did  pass  such  legislation  as 
they  saw  fit  regarding  the  negro,  there  were  not  enough 
of  such  liberally  disposed  men  to  protect  the  freedman 
from  a  peonage  that  was  worse  than  the  vanished  heredi- 
tary slavery.  For  example,  take  the  "Black  Code"  of 
Louisiana,  as  reported  by  Judge  Tourjee,  which  was 
enacted  after  the  war  to  control  the  freedman.  These 
laws  required  that  all  agricultural  laborers  should  be 
compelled  to  make  contracts  for  the  year,  within  the  first 
twelve  days  of  January;  and  if  they  did  not  do  so,  they 
were  arrested  as  vagrants  and  their  labor  sold  by  the 
sheriff  at  public  auction  to  the  highest  bidder.  Once  the 
contract  was  made,  or  the  vagrant  bought,  he  was  not 
allowed  to  leave  the  plantation  of  the  buyer  or  contractor 
except  by  permission.  If  so  found  away  from  home  by 
the  patrol,  he  could  be  arrested  and  punished  as  in  the 
days  of  slavery.  The  master  was  permitted  to  be  the  only 
judge  in  making  deductions  in  the  freedman's  wages,  and 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  273 

for  almost  any  possible  cause.  Thus  it  would  seem  the 
freedman  would  have  left,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  only 
so  much  money  as  the  master  in  his  bounty  was  willing 
he  should  possess. 

When  one  considers  that  the  costs  which  the  so-called 
freedman  had  to  pay  for  arrests  for  vagrancy  were  from 
thirty  to  fifty  dollars,  and  that  planters  often  combined 
to  reduce  the  sums  paid  for  their  labor  to  as  low  some- 
times as  two  dollars  a  month,  it  does  not  take  long  to  con- 
clude that,  bad  as  Mexican  peonage  is,  it  would  be  prefer- 
able to  the  condition  of  the  freedman  under  the  Black 
Laws  enacted  by  some  Southern  States  before  recon- 
struction. 

The  ideas  of  the  just  and  generous  Southern  men 
found  no  expression  in  the  Black  Codes  because  they 
were  outnumbered.  There  were  two  elements,  which,  for 
different  reasons,  thought  Judge  Taney  correct  and  that 
the  "negro  had  no  rights  that  the  white  man  was  bound 
to  respect."  They  were,  first,  the  great  planters  who  had 
always  worked  the  negro  from  daylight  to  dark,  and 
pushed  him  without  mercy  to  squeeze  every  dollar  pos- 
sible out  of  his  labor;  and  second,  the  "poor  white  trash" 
whose  jealousy  would  not  permit  a  "nigger"  to  possess 
more  property  than  they  held.  Their  slogan  was,  "A 
nigger  shall  not  ride  a  hoss  when  a  white  man  has  to 
walk." 

This  feeling  was  no  local  affair ;  it  was  general 
throughout  the  slave  states,  and  was  the  natural  result 
of  centuries  of  slavery.  So  strong  was  it  that  whenever  a 
negro  by  industry  and  economy  had  succeeded  in  reaching 
that  acme  of  negro  ambition,  "forty  acres  of  land  and  a 


274  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

mule,"  he  would  be  likely  to  receive,  and  in  many  cases 
did  receive,  a  notice  something  like  this :  "The  Regulators 
has  met  and  decided  that  no  nigger  shan't  be  allowed  to 
own  no  hoss  nor  run  no  crop  on  his  own  account  here 
arter.  Now  we  gives  you  three  days  to  get  away,  ef 
your  here  when  that  time  is  over,  the  buzzards  would 
have  a  bait  that  has  been  right  scarce  since  the  war  was 
over." 

And  the  worst  of  it  was,  if  the  negro  did  not  leave 
the  country  the  threat  was  likely  to  be  made  good — even 
to  the  ham-stringing  of  his  horses,  the  destruction  of  his 
property,  or  the  assault,  mahem,  or  murder  of  himself 
and  family.  There  is  no  necessity  of  quoting  any  authority 
to  prove  this  statement ;  it  can  be  found  amply  proven  in 
the  report  of  the  joint  Congressional  Committee  touch- 
ing these  matters.  This  report  comprises  thirteen  close- 
printed,  octavo  volumes,  six  thousand  pages,  all  concern- 
ing matters  of  this  kind. 

This  period  of  jealousy  has  not  died  out  yet.  I  wit- 
nessed a  curious  exhibition  of  it  one  evening  in  a  club 
room  at  Mobile,  Alabama,  where  I  had  been  hospitably 
received  and  my  sick  body  made  gratefully  comfortable. 
A  squad  of  Southern  young  men,  who  had  been  brought 
up  in  idleness  and  with  the  antipathy  of  that  section  to 
manual  labor,  were  discussing  the  negro  question  and 
criticising  their  state  officials  for  expending  the  state 
moneys  in  educating  "baboons."  Just  then  an  old  planter, 
apparently  of  the  broad-minded,  generous  type  I  have 
tried  to  describe,  came  in.  This  man,  after  listening 
awhile  to  their  half-formed  opinions  and  illogical  views, 
finally  interrupted  by  saying: 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  275 

"Do  you  want  me  to  tell  what  is  the  matter  with  you 
fellows?"  The  young  men  were  surprised,  but  finally 
agreed  they  did  want  that  information. 

*'\\'ell/'  continued  the  old  planter,  "I  go  along  the 
street  in  the  city  and  see  a  big  business  block  being 
erected.  Who  is  building  it?  It's  not  you  fellows,  it's 
the  niggers.  I  see  a  great  bridge  being  built,  who's  doing 
the  work?  It's  not  you  fellows,  it's  the  niggers.  I  see 
in  the  suburban  parts  of  the  city  little  bungalows  being 
constructed,  surrounded  by  gardens  making  cozy  homes 
for  wives  and  kids.  Whose  are  they  ?  They  don't  belong 
to  you  fellows,  they're  owned  by  the  niggers.  I  tell  you 
right  now  what's  the  matter  with  every  one  of  you : 
d — n  you,  you  are  jealous." 

One  strictly  essential  safeguard  to  freedom  which  the 
Southern  governments  established  by  Johnson  failed  to 
give  the  colored  man,  although  they  had  three  years  in 
which  to  do  it,  was  to  bestow  upon  him  the  right  of  being 
able  to  protect  his  life,  liberty,  and  property  by  going  into 
court  and  testifying  in  cases  of  controversy  between  him 
and  the  white  man.  One  of  their  speakers  outlined  the 
almost  universal  sentiment  of  the  South,  at  that  time, 
when  he  said,  "What!  Allow  a  nigger  to  testify?  We've 
been  outraged  and  insulted.  Our  best  men  have  been 
put  under  ban ;  but  we  have  not  got  so  low  as  to  submit 
to  that,  yet.  Our  rights  are  too  sacred  to  be  put  at  the 
mercy  of  negro  perjurors." 

It  was  certainly  hard  for  a  white  man  to  be  brought 
into  court  by  a  former  slave  whom  he  had  ever  looked 
upon  as  being  a  chattel,  little  higher  than  his  dog  or  his 


276  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

horse.  But  if  that  man  was  now  free  and  permitted  to 
live  in  the  community,  it  was  a  right  that  he  certainly 
must  possess. 

The  most  potent  and  disturbing  factor  affecting  the 
progress  of  the  freedmen  was  the  Ku  Klux  Klan.  It 
is  contended  by  the  South  that  this  organization,  bad  as 
it  finally  proved  to  be,  was  urgently  necessary  to  pre- 
vent the  entire  ruin  of  the  Southern  states  by  negro  votes 
under  the  Reconstruction  Government  set  up  by  federal 
authority  in  1868.  That  the  best  citizens  of  the  South 
were  convinced  of  the  need  of  this  organization  to  pre- 
vent their  being  altogether  submerged  by  what  they 
feared  would  become  a  negro  semi-civilization  or  savag- 
ery is  certain.  That  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  was  eventually 
used  for  this  purpose  is  true,  but  that  it  was  organized 
for  that  purpose  is  not  so  clear. 

The  Reconstruction  government  was  not  organized 
until  July,  1868,  and  before  that  time  the  Ku  Klux  Klan 
was  in  full  operation  all  over  the  South.  In  the  first  nine 
months  of  that  year,  1868,  there  were  eighteen  hundred 
and  sixty-two  cases  of  maltreating,  wounding,  and  killing 
in  one  state  alone.  This  shows  that  the  Ku  Klux  Klan 
was  not  organized  because  of  what  Reconstruction  had 
done,  although  it  may  have  been  established  from  fear 
of  what  they  supposed  it  might  do. 

It  was  the  legitimate  successor  of  the  patrol  system 
of  slavery  by  which  bands  of  young  men  were  detailed 
nightly  to  patrol  the  county  and  see  that  negroes  kept 
their  place,  flogging  or  otherwise  chastising  those  they 
found  out  of  bounds  as  circumstances  or  sentiment  sug- 
gested.    Then,  their  vocation  was  not  only  legal,  but  by 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  277 

slave  law  required,  and  they  went  without  disguise.  Now 
their  acts  were  illegal,  and  they  covered  themselves  and 
their  horses  completely  with  grotesque  uniforms  and 
terrified  the  superstitious  darkey  population  by  represent- 
ing themselves  as  ghosts  from  the  battle  fields  of  the  late 
war. 

To  convince  the  negro  of  their  ghostly  nature  they 
resorted  to  many  devices.  One  was  to  call  for  a  drink 
of  water,  and  when  cup  or  gourd  was  so  filled  and  handed 
to  them  they  would  say,  "No,  give  me  the  bucket."  Then, 
with  aid  of  a  viewless  contrivance,  they  would  drink  the 
whole  bucketful,  and  with  a  sigh  of  satisfaction  exclaim, 
"That's  the  first  drink  I've  had  since  I  was  killed  at 
Gettysburg."  The  ghostly  visitors  then  gave  the  fright- 
ened blacks  orders  as  to  what  they  were  to  do  or  not  to 
do  to  avoid  being  haunted  in  future  in  some  worse 
manner. 

Even  the  better  class  of  Southern  people  thought  such 
"visitations"  were  justifiable  for  the  purpose  of  prevent- 
ing the  negro  from  voting  the  Republican  ticket,  and  the 
purpose  was  accomplished.  The  white  voters  regained 
the  control  of  the  state  government.  Nor  was  the  rejoic- 
ing for  this  accomplishment  confined  to  the  Southern 
states ;  the  North  wanted  only  to  see  the  negro  have  a 
chance;  it  never  for  a  moment  wanted  to  see  him  in  his 
ignorance  rule  the  Saxon  race.  To  this  purpose  the  better 
people  of  the  South  expected  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  to  con- 
fine its  operations,  but,  as  is  usual  when  illegal  measures 
are  invoked,  the  unlawful  force  becomes  unmanageable, 
and  may  prove  a  veritable  "Frankenstein"  to  perplex  its 
creator.  The  doctrine  that  "the  ends  justify  the  means" 
often  brings  results  that  may  destroy  its  sponsors. 


278  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Thus  the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  so  far  as  the  better  part  of 
the  Southerners  knew  and  authorized,  was  organized 
simply  to  frighten  and  to  keep  away  from  the  polls 
enough  negroes  so  that  the  whites  could  control  their 
several  states.  Finding  safety  in  their  disguise,  entire 
immunity  from  punishment  for  their  proceedings,  and 
realizing  they  could  do  anything  they  wished  without 
hazard  to  themselves,  the  members  of  the  Klan  naturally 
progressed  from  ghostly  visitations  to  whipping  and  mal- 
treatment, from  whipping  and  maltreatment  to  arson  and 
mahem,  and  from  these  to  robbery  and  murder.  So 
atrocious  were  some  of  these  crimes  that  Reverdy  John- 
son, counsel  for  a  Ku  Klux  man  under  indictment,  horri- 
fied by  the  testimony  against  his  own  client,  threw  up 
his  hands  and  exclaimed,  "It  is  simply  savagery,  for 
which  there  can  be  no  excuse  nor  palliation." 

The  motion  picture  play,  "The  Birth  of  a  Nation," 
which  was  exhibited  in  1917-1918,  introduces  a  view  upon 
which  is  quoted  the  statement  made  by  Judge  Tourgee  to 
the  efTect  that  the  casualties  during  the  Ku  Klux  Klan's 
domination  were  greater  than  those  at  Gettysburgh. 
This  would  indicate  over  fifty  thousand  killed,  or  muti- 
lated. 

Whether  this  estimate  is  too  small  or  too  large,  I  do 
not  know,  but  I  do  know  something  which  the  motion 
picture  does  not  state,  namely,  that  with  very  few  excep- 
tions, these  so  estimated  fifty  thousand  victims  were 
helpless  negroes  or  Union  men.  Further,  that  scarcely 
one  of  them  had  a  chance  to  die  or  defend  himself  in  fair 
fight,  but  was  aroused  at  the  midnight  hour  by  over- 
powering bands  of  armed  men,  who,  at  their  pleasure 


THE  FREEING  OF  'J' I II':  NEGRO  279 

and  without  danger  to  themselves,  worked  their  fiendish 
desire  upon  him — a  purpose  as  brutal  as  that  of  a  Sioux 
Indian  in  the  heat  of  retaliatory  warfare. 

Who  committed  all  these  outrages?  Was  it  the 
chivalry  of  the  South?  God  forbid!  They  started  the 
movement  for  the  purpose  mentioned,  and  then  "went  to 
sleep  at  the  switch."  They  realized  not  what  was  being 
done,  and  when  the  bottom  dropped  out  of  the  whole 
thing  they  were  horrified,  and  were  glad  to  see  the  crea- 
ture they  had  created  brought  to  the  bar  of  justice,  con- 
demned, and  destroyed. 

Should  a  Southern  man,  almost  anywhere  in  the 
South,  be  asked  the  question,  "How  are  you  getting  along 
with  the  negroes  in  your  section?"  the  reply  would  very 
likely  be  in  effect,  "We  are  getting  along  nicely.  We  have 
the  niggers  down  and  they  are  making  no  trouble."  The 
question  of  "keeping  the  negro  down"  is  one  having  many 
phases,  applications  and  explanations.  He  may  be  kept 
down  politically,  he  may  be  kept  down  socially,  he  may 
be  kept  down  educationally,  or  he  may  be  kept  down  in- 
dustrially. Each  proposition  may  be  right  or  wrong  ac- 
cording to  the  interpretation  placed  upon  it. 

Take  the  first  statement.  If  the  negro  is  prevented 
from  exercising  the  elective  franchise  by  Ku  Klux  Klan 
methods,  it  is  not  only  barbarous  but  criminal.  But  if  he 
is  prevented  from  voting  as  is  now  done  in  most  of  the 
Southern  states,  by  making  the  just  demand  that  every 
elector  should  be  able  to  read  his  ballot,  and  that  before 
he  casts  it  he  should  have  paid  his  taxes,  it  is  a  step  to- 
ward true  democracy  and  is  worthy  of  emulation.  I  for 
one  would  be  glad  to  see  it  incorporated  into  the  laws  of 
my  own  Northern  state  of  Iowa. 


28o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  other  propositions  are  equally  open  to  as  many 
definitions  and  explanations.  I  care  not  here  to  discuss 
them  further  than  to  say,  a  race  can  not  be  "kept  down" 
by  any  method  however  gentle,  just,  or  necessary,  without 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  placing  a  handicap  upon  its 
upward  progress.  This  fact  should  be  kept  in  mind  as 
we  consider. what  the  negro  has  accomplished,  despite  his 
handicap,  since  he  gained  his  freedom. 

My  personal  observation  also  shows  that  the  negro  is 
moving  not  towards  barbarism  as  has  often  been  said  but 
away  from  it,  and  considering  his  handicap,  is  making 
most  satisfactory  strides  in  that  direction.  In  Mississippi, 
in  about  the  blackest  parts  of  the  negro  South,  I  asked  a 
doctor  of  my  acquaintance,  "How  are  the  negroes  getting 
along  here  now?" 

He  replied,  "Fine,  sir,  fine.  Why,  there  is  that  Sam. 
I  had  a  sick  case  in  his  family  and  I  never  expected  to  get 
a  cent  for  it,  but  I  met  him  the  other  day  and  I  said, 
'Sam  when  are  you  going  to  pay  me  for  those  visits?'  and 
what  does  the  blamed  black  rascal  do  but  put  his  hand  in 
his  pocket  and  take  out  a  check  book  and  give  me  a 
check  for  it."  Barbarians  do  not  usually  have  checking 
accounts  in  the  bank. 

I  asked  a  storekeeper  at  another  place  the  same  ques- 
tion. His  answer  was,  "Splendid,  A  darkey  by  the 
name  of  Pompey  owed  me  about  three  thousand  dollars 
for  horses,  seed  and  provisions,  and  he  paid  me  out  of 
this  year's  crop  over. two  thousand  dollars."  Barbarians 
do  not  usually  have  a  credit  of  three  thousand  dollars, 
and  it  is  more  rare  still  when  they  earn  and  pay  two 
thousand  dollars  as  the  result  of  one  year's  labor. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  281 

I  found,  not  only  here  but  everywhere,  that  the 
negroes  were  making  every  sacrifice  to  permit  their  chil- 
dren to  attend  all  school  privileges  that  were  offered  them. 
I  think  they  were  much  more  appreciative  of  such  op- 
portunities than  the  poor  whites.  I  was  told  of  one  case 
where  a  poor  white  man  moved  from  the  mountains  into 
town  and  placed  his  children  in  the  factory  to  work  for 
wages  in  place  of  in  the  school  for  education.  His  wife 
from  the  proceeds  of  the  children's  labor,  having  more 
money  than  she  ever  possessed  before,  played  the  lady 
and  hired  a  black  woman  to  do  her  work.  It  turned  out 
that  the  black  servant  was  the  owner  of  the  house  in 
which  the  white  lady  lived  as  tenant.  The  black  house 
owner  was  still  working  hard  that  her  children  might 
have  an  education ;  the  white  tenant  was  depriving  hers 
of  their  schooling  to  have  a  chance  to  play  lady.  This 
yarn  may  not  be  true  but  I  have  seen  some  things  that 
looked  very  much  like  it. 

I  noted  the  little  churches  scattered  around  the 
country  and  saw  the  weekly  attendance  that  there  as- 
sembled with  their  respectable  conveyances,  cleanly 
dressed  men,  and  brilliantly  clad  women.  Barbarians  do 
not  spend  money  freely  to  maintain  any  form  of  Chris- 
tian worship.  Whoever  called  these  people  barbarians 
made  a  mistake. 

When  I  was  in  the  South  during  the  Civil  War  there 
was  no  negro  church  organization.  The  preacher  at  a 
negro  meeting  was  almost  sure  to  be  slave,  and  being 
a  slave  could  neither  read  nor  write.  He  was  usually  a 
man  of  some  psychologic  force,  enthusiastic,  honest,  and 
could  lead  the  singing.     With  this  slight  equipment  he 


282  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

was  able  to  carry  his  less  intelligent  audience  where  he 
would.  The  gathering  (for  it  lacked  the  organization 
that  the  term  congregation  would  imply)  was  mostly 
composed  of  slaves,  present  from  adjoining  plantations 
by  consent  of  their  masters.  They  were  simple,  impul- 
sive, and  excitable  nearly  to  the  point  of  hysteria. 

When  the  minister  came  to  his  sermon  little  was  ex- 
pected of  him — it  was  thought  the  Lord  would  by  some 
miraculous  'power  fill  his  mouth  with  words  fit  for  the 
occasion.  The  Lord  may  have  performed  such  miracles 
at  some  time  or  place,  but  never  when  I  was  present.  No 
matter  how  stumblingly  the  pastor  may  have  been  pro~ 
ceeding  he  would  be  encouraged  by  loud  shouts  of, 
"Amen!  Bless  the  Lord!  Glory!  Hallelujah!"  inter- 
spersed by  inimitable  negro  songs  and  the  "Patting  of 
Juba."  The  excitement  would  rise  higher  and  higher, 
the  people  eventually  jumping,  laughing  and  crying,  until, 
in  the  excitement,  some  fainted,  some  went  into  an  appa- 
rent trance,  and  the  whole  scene  resembled  a  savage 
incantation  rather  than  a  Christian  service.  Such  was 
negro  worship  during  slavery,  and  such  it  was  during  the 
time  near  and  succeeding  the  Civil  War.  As  such  I  have 
remembered  it,  as  such  I  think  the  large  part  of  the 
Northern  people  still  think  of  it. 

It  follows  without  saying  that  I  was  not  prepared  for 
the  change  I  found.  From  the  directory  of  the  city  of 
San  Antonio,  Texas,  I  chanced  to  select  the  Second 
Baptist  Church  for  investigation.  I  went  to  the  designated 
location  and  stopped — I  must  have  made  a  mistake — this 
beautiful,  eighty  thousand  dollar  edifice,  that  would 
ornament  any  town  or  city,  North  or  South,  could  not 
be  the  negro  church  I  was  looking  for.     I  returned  for 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  283 

further  investigation,  and  after  ascertaining  that  the  fine 
building  I  had  located  was  really  the  negro  church,  I  then 
looked  for  the  pastor. 

I  found  him  in  his  study,  a  courteous,  colored  gentle- 
man, and  a  college  graduate  who  did  not  murder  the 
king's  English  as  atrociously  as  I  myself  did.  I  learned 
that  the  edifice  was  nearly  paid  for,  that  the  church  had  a 
congregation  of  about  two  thousand  regular  attendants, 
and  twelve  hundred  actual  church  communicants.  It 
had  an  armual  budget  for  church  expenses  of  four 
thousand  five  hundred  dollars,  besides  other  special  col- 
lections for  building  and  missionary  funds.  Beyond  all 
this,  they,  as  scrupulously  as  the  Jew,  took  care  of  their 
own  poor,  permitting  none  either  to  beg  or  become  de- 
pendent upon  the  city.  This  is  a  showing  that  would  do 
honor  to  any  white  congregation. 

This  is  not  the  only  negro  church  in  the  city.  There 
are  five  others  of  equal  standing  as  to  pastor,  member- 
ship, attendance,  wealth,  and  equipment.  Also  there  are 
fifteen  smaller  ones,  but  among  the  whole  fifteen  smaller 
congregations  there  is  not  one  pastor  who  has  not  had 
at  least  a  normal  school  training.  The  advance  here 
shown,  in  a  religious  way,  stands  as  an  illustration  and 
symbol  of  the  negro's  growth  in  other  directions. 

In  lower  Tennessee,  near  the  Alabama  line,  I  inter- 
viewed the  white  merchant  of  a  small  town,  the  center  of 
a  cotton  growing  district.  "Do  you  supply  the  negro 
croppers  with  what  they  need  to  raise  their  cotton  ?" 

"Yes,  certainly,  I  do  or  some  other  man  in  town  does." 

"Do  you  get  your  pay?" 

"Every  time." 


284  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

"Does  the  cropper  have  anything  left  after  paying 
you?" 

"Sometimes  he  does  have  quite  a  lot,  and  sometimes 
he  does  not.  When  he  comes  out  with  a  surplus  he  has 
one  grand,  glorious  time,  and  when  he  comes  out  short 
he  and  his  family  live  on  the  slavery  ration  of  a  peck  of 
corn  a  week  and  a  little  bacon,  and  are  still  the  happiest 
people  in  the  world  in  either  condition/' 

"Are  any  of  them  getting  ahead  ?" 

"Oh  yes;  there  is  John,  and  Henry,  aricl  Sam  and 
Bill,  who  own  their  own  farms,  and  old  man  Day,  who 
can  draw  as  large  a  check  and  have  it  honored,  and  dis- 
count at  the  bank  as  big  a  note  of  his  own  making  as  any 
man  in  the  country." 

Continuing  the  examination,  I  asked.  "Are  there  any 
white  men  growing  cotton  here  ?" 

"Not  to  any  perceptible  degree,"  he  answered. 

"What  would  you  do  if  the  negroes  should  stop  rais- 
ing cotton?" 

"If  the  negroes  did  not  raise  cotton,  or  some  other 
paying  crop,  we  should  have  to  shut  up  our  stores  and 
move  out,  for  there  are  not  enough  white  men  who  will 
work  on  a  farm  to  keep  us  in  the  salt  we  want  on  our 
potatoes." 

On  the  street  of  a  not  far-away  city,  I  met  a  darkey, 
who  with  a  broad  grin,  saluted  me  by  saying,  "I  know 
what  dat  ar  button  means,"  and  he  pointed  to  my  Grand 
Army  of  the  Republic  insignia  on  the  lapel  of  my  coat. 

"If  you  know  that,"  I  replied,  "I  guess  you  are  an  ex- 
slave." 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  285 

''Deed,  I  is,  massa,"  he  answered. 

"Well,"  I  continued,  "How  are  you  getting  along?" 

"Fine,  massa,  fine.  I  owns  a  quarter  section  ob  land 
all  paid  for,  and  plenty  stock  and  machinery  to  work  it. 
Ise  all  right,  sure." 

Down  in  the  Yazoo  delta,  I  understand  more  than  half 
of  the  negroes  own  their  own  farms  in  sizes  ranging 
from  forty  to  six  hundred  acres,  and  that  one  negro  there 
living  is  worth  seventy-five  to  eighty  thousand  dollars 
with  quite  a  number  of  others  crowding  him  for  a  close 
second. 

In  Kentucky  I  talked  with  an  old  time  ex-planter,  and 
asked  him  how  they  were  getting  along  with  the  negroes  ? 

"All  right,"  said  he.  "We  have  got  them  down  and 
they  are  making  no  trouble,  though  they  were  a  great 
deal  better  off  in  slavery." 

"How  do  you  make  that  out?"  I  replied. 

"Well,"  he  answered,  "they  are  so  improvident  and 
reckless.  They  are  receiving  good  wages  and  will  work 
a  while  until  they  get  a  bunch  of  money  together  and 
then,  like  all  niggers,  they  will  have  a  grand  time,  perhaps 
buy  an  auto  and  joy-ride  until  the  cash  has  disappeared, 
then  go  to  work  again." 

"Like  all  niggers !"  Yes,  thought  I,  the  negro  is  "the 
happiest  man  on  earth"  and  is  bound  to  have  a  good  time 
if  possible,  even  though  there  may  be  dark  days  ahead. 
Here  comes  to  me  a  thought.  Should  we  not  take  a  leaf 
out  of  their  philosophy,  we  Saxons,  who  work  hard  all 
our  lives,  never  having  a  grand,  good  time,  just  so  we 
may  leave  money  that  likely  will  do  our  children  more 


286  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

harm  than  good  ?  In  my  mind  I  could  not  help  contrast- 
ing the  slave  as  I  saw  him  in  1861-5,  working  from  day- 
light until  dark,  living  on  plantation  rations  and  dressed 
in  plantation  clothes,  with  these  joy-riders  the  planter 
described.  The  idea  that  their  former  condition  was  bet- 
ter than  the  latter  is  absurd. 

They  do  not  all  spend  thoughtlessly  everything  they 
make.  A  very  large  part  of  their  number  are  saving 
more  or  less  of  their  income.  While  pleasure-walking 
through  one  Southern  city  I  passed  a  new,  very  tasteful, 
and  apparently  commodious  bungalow.  A  colored  man 
was  putting  on  some  finishing  touches  around  the  yard, 
and  I  said  to  him,  "That's  a  cozy  looking  bungalow. 
Whose  is  it?" 

He  straightened  himself  up,  his  face  shone  with  honest 
pride  as  he  answered,  "It  is  mine,  sir,  and  it  is  paid  for." 

I  complimented  him  by  saying,  "You  have  done  well 
to  save  money  enough  to  build  such  a  fine  home  for  your- 
self and  family." 

"I  hab  not  done  so  well  as  I  ort  to,"  he  replied.  "I 
might  just  as  well  had  one  or  two  more  like  dis  if  I  had 
only  sabed  my  money  and  not  spent  it  as  fast  as  I  earned 
it.     But  I  done  stopped  dat  ar  foolishness  now." 

"It  is  too  bad  more  of  your  race  do  not  follow  your 
example,"  I  said. 

"They  are  doin'  it  now,"  said  the  negro.  "Mong  de 
workin'  men  dat  I  know,  mos'  every  one  dat  is  earnin' 
twelve  dollars  a  week  or  mo  is  makin'  payment  on  some 
lot  or  buildin'  for  a  home.     I  ain't  de  only  one  here  dat 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  287 

has  got  his  own  house.  Dat,  and  dat,  all  is  owned  by 
negroes,"  and  he  pointed  out  nearly  one-third  of  the 
houses  within  sight. 

But  these  are  all  individual  and  special  cases ;  how 
about  the  negro  as  a  whole?  There  is  but  one  place  where 
authoritative  information  on  that  subject  can  be  found, 
and  that  is  the  United  States  Census  Reports.  It  is  un- 
fortunate that  1910  is  the  latest  compilation  of  facts 
available,  because,  from  my  personal  observation  there 
has  been  no  time  when  the  negro  has  advanced  as  rapidly 
as  since  that  year  up  to  the  present  time,  1919. 

Therefore,  it  should  be  kept  strongly  in  mind  that  the 
progress  of  the  race  is  very  much  greater  than  the  figures 
I  am  able  to  produce  from  the  last  Census  Report.  From 
facts  therein  stated,  I  find  that  in  five  of  the  Southern 
states,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Mississippi,  Alabama  and 
Louisiana,  the  negroes  operated  from  forty  to  sixty  per 
cent  of  all  the  farms  in  those  states,  and  in  the  South 
alone  upon  the  farms  owned  or  rented  by  negroes,  they 
raised  in  1910,  as  shown  in  round  numbers: 

Two  hundred  and  seventy  million  dollars  worth  of 
cotton. 

Seventy-seven  million  dollars  worth  of  corn. 

Forty-seven   million  dollars  worth  of  cotton-seed. 

Ten  million  dollars  worth  of  tobacco. 

Seven  million  dollars  worth  of  sweet  potatoes. 

Five  million  dollars  worth  of  hay. 

Also  oats  and  other  produce,  making  the  amount 
produced  from  field  crops  nearly  five  hundred  million 
dollars,  all  this  upon  farms  owned  or  operated  by  negroes. 


2SS  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

They  own  in  fee  simple  221,535  farms,  of  which 
174,853  are  fully  paid  for.  They  also  own  285,055  city 
and  town  homes,  of  which  214,884  are  free  of  incum- 
brance and  fully  paid  for. 

To  state  the  fact  in  round  numbers  and  a  little 
plainer :  the  negro,  either  as  owner  or  renter,  operated 
nearly  two  million  homes,  including  both  city  and  farm.' 
Of  these  he  owned  about  five  hundred  thousand,  and  of 
those  that  he  owned,  seventy-five  per  cent  were  free  from 
incumbrance  and  fully  paid  for.  The  value  of  the  farms 
belonging  to  the  blacks  alone,  together  with  the  property 
thereon,  in  1910  was  over  two  billion  dollars  and  I  think 
at  the  present  time  it  would  be  nearly  double  that  amount. 

This  census  shows  there  were  of  persons  not  gainfully 
employed,  white  male,  nineteen  and  four-tenths  per  cent; 
of  negro  male,  twelve  and  six-tenths  per  cent;  of  white 
female,  eighty-two  and  three-tenths  per  cent;  and  negro 
female,  forty-five  and  two-tenths  per  cent.  The  eighty- 
seven  and  four-tenths  per  cent  of  the  negroes  who  were 
gainfully  employed  could  be  found  in  every  condition, 
trade,  and  profession  from  that  of  cleaning  the  pig  pen 
to  filling  the  pulpit  or  professor's  chair. 

In  regarding  illiteracy,  the  negroes  are  making  rapid 
progress.  As  I  have  said  before,  they  are  keen  to  embrace 
every  opportunity  given  them  for  education,  I  think  the 
various  state  legislatures  of  the  South  have  been  provid- 
ing for  their  needs  in  that  direction  as  fully  as  their 
finances  will  permit.  From  an  illiteracy  of  one  hundred 
per  cent  at  emancipation,  these  people  have  reduced  the 
rates  to  fifteen  and  one-tenth  per  cent  in  1910,  and  it  is 
doubtless  still  less  at  the  present  time. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  289 

This  showing  of  the  progress  that  the  freedman  has 
made — religiously,  educationally,  and  materially — is  more 
than  could  reasonably  be  expected.  The  wonder  is,  not 
that  he  has  advanced  so  little,  but  that  considering  his 
handicaps  he  has  progressed  so  far  as  he  has. 

There  is  only  one  thing  that  the  Census  records  show 
as  detrimental  to  his  standing,  and  that  is  capable  of  a 
partial  explanation.  This  is  where  his  record,  in  propor- 
tion to  numbers,  shows  more  than  twice  as  many  delin- 
quents among  the  negro  as  among  the  white  population. 
But  the  Census  itself  cautions  against  accepting  these 
figures  as  proofs  of  actual  offenses  having  been  com- 
mitted, and  gives  the  following  reasons  why  they  should 
not  be  so  accepted : 

1.  Racial  prejudice,  which  impels  prosecution  of  the 
negro  sooner  than  the  white  man.  2.  A  negro  once  ac- 
cused is  more  likely  to  be  without  friends  or  money  to 
make  adequate  defense.  3.  If  fine  or  imprisonment  is 
the  penalty,  lack  of  money  may  compel  the  black  man  to 
receive  the  latter  in  place  of  the  former.  In  addition  to 
these  three  causes  urged  by  the  Census,  I  add  two  more 
reasons  which  the  negroes  state  with  great  probability  of 
truth.  4.  If  a  white  man  intends  committing  a  crime, 
he  is  likely  to  black  his  face  and  pretend  to  be  a  negro. 
5.  Where  laws  against  gambling  are  enforced  it  is  com- 
paratively easy  to  catch  the  negro  at  his  game  of  craps, 
while  the  white  man  in  his  club  room,  playing  his  game 
of  poker,  is  rarely  arrested. 

When  these  causes  are  taken  into  consideration,  the 
delinquencies  of  the  black  man  are  probably  not  more 
than  his  previous  history  and  condition  might  lead  us  to 


290  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

expect,  especially  when  we  must  consider  that  a  very- 
large  proportion  of  illiterates  and  many  of  the  delinquents 
are  the  degenerate  products  of  slavery  time. 

Since  the  world  began,  no  nation  has  from  the  depths 
of  abject  slavery,  in  a  short  half  century,  made  the 
advance,  intellectually  and  materially,  that  the  negro  has. 
It  was  slow  at  first,  but  is  now  increasing  more  rapidly 
and,  properly  used — as  I  believe  it  will  be — this  advance- 
ment will  make  of  these  people  such  a  substantial  and 
essential  part  of  our  future  nation  that  we  could  not  well 
get  along  without  them. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  291 

CHAPTER  XVI 

PROVIDENCE  AND  IMPROVIDENCE  OF 
THE  FREEDMAN 

It  is  the  easiest  and  most  usual  thing  in  the  world  to 
be  mistaken.  In  common  with  a  very  large  majority  of 
white  people  both  North  and  South,  I  had  the  idea  if 
there  was  anything  settled  regarding  the  negro,  it  was 
that  he  spent  his  money  lavishly  and  thoughtlessly;  and 
when  helplessness  and  old  age  overtook  him  he  settled 
comfortably  into  the  almshouses  of  the  Saxon  for  main- 
tenance. 

To  my  surprise  I  have  found  that,  however  foolishly 
he  may  spend  his  money,  it  is  false  that  he  has  an  ab- 
normal tendency  toward  the  poor  house.  The  census 
statistics  show,  out  of  each  hundred  thousand  persons  of 
each  race,  there  are  in  the  almshouses  of  the  United 
States,  a  little  over  sixty-nine  negroes,  sixty-seven  native 
whites,  and  two  hundred  and  forty-nine  foreign-born 
whites.  This  would  make  trie  average  of  the  two  classes 
of  whites  a  little  over  one  hundred  and  sixty-three,  which 
is  more  than  double  the  number  of  so-called  improvident 
and  lazy  negroes.  The  reading  of  this  riddle,  which  I 
think  I  found  by  personal  investigation,  I  am  glad  to 
report. 

The  first  explanation  I  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
churches  of  San  Antonio  did  not  permit  their  members 
to  receive  outside  help.  But  the  actions  of  a  few  congre- 
gations clfd  not  impress  me  as  of  great  moment  in  effect- 
ing any  total  result. 


292  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

I  was  still  so  obsessed  with  the  idea  that  when  I  was 
talking  with  the  principal  of  one  of  the  colored  schools  of 
the  city,  a  white  man,  who  had  spent  twenty-nine  years  as 
teacher  among  the  colored  people,  I  still  was  bemoaning 
the  idea  that  the  negro  spent  his  money  foolishly  and  let 
the  white  man  care  for  him  when  disaster  came.  The 
professor  stopped  me  and  said,  "Mr.  Burnap,  you  are 
mistaken ;  the  average  negro  today  is  saving  his  wages 
more  closely  and  investing  them  more  carefully  than  the 
average  white  man  or  Mexican,  and  further,  calls  for  less 
help  than  either  of  the  last  named."  The  statement  was  a 
shock  to  all  my  previous  ideas.  I  did  not  believe  it,  and 
was  ungentlemanly  enough  to  tell  him  so.  He  replied, 
"So  far  as  the  saving  and  investing  of  his  money  is  con- 
cerned, that  is  the  result  of  my  observation  and  difficult 
of  proof  or  disproof.  But  so  far  as  charity  help  is  con- 
cerned, that  is  a  matter  of  statistics  and  you  can  very 
easily  find  out  whether  I  am  telling  the  truth  or  not  by 
consulting  the  proper  authorities." 

As  I  did  want  to  know  the  truth  I  went  directly  to 
the  office  of  the  United  Charities  of  that  city  and  con- 
sulted the  workers  who  were  white  people.  I  found  the 
professor  was  right.  The  information  there  given  me 
proved  that,  according  to  relative  numbers  of  the  different 
races,  the  negroes  made  fewer  applications  for  relief 
than  either  the  whites  or  Mexicans ;  that  his  fewer  appli- 
cations were  for  shorter  time,  demanded  less  money,  and 
usually  had  more  satisfactory  result.  It  was  up  to  me 
to  eat  humble  pie.  I  immediately  sought  out  the  profes- 
sor and  thanked  him  for  setting  me  right  in  the  matter, 
so  far  as  San  Antonio  was  concerned. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  293 

But  was  the  fact  general?  Was  it  not  a  local  con- 
dition applying  to  this  particular  city?  I  concluded  to 
investigate.  I  went  to  Houston,  and  consulted  the  super- 
intendent of  charity  work.  She  was  not  prepared  to  give 
definite  figures;  she  thought  in  proportion  to  population 
there  was  not  much  difference,  but  what  difference 
existed  was  in  favor  of  the  negroes. 

I  went  to  Galveston.  The  secretary  of  charity  work 
said,  "It  is  not  true  that  the  negroes  are  beggars;  on  the 
contrary  they  do  not  ask  help  when  they  should,  and  we 
many  times  have  to  seek  out  the  needy  and  deserving 
cases.  Up  to  a  year  ago  there  was  no  record  kept  of 
money  distributed  separately  to  the  black  and  white 
people,  but  the  idea  was  so  strong  and  prevalent  and  com- 
plaints so  many  that  the  negroes  were  receiving  an  undue 
and  unjust  proportion  of  the  funds  that  this  year  I  have 
kept  the  expenditures  separate  with  the  following  result : 
Galveston's  population  is  substantially  two-thirds  white 
one-third  black,  consequently  the  blacks  would  be  entitled 
to  one-third  of  the  charity  money.  They  have  drawn  only 
one-fourth,  and  there  are  many  well-to-do  negroes  in  the 
city  who  contribute  to  the  fund,  perhaps  as  much  or  even 
more  than  is  drawn  by  them."  That  answered  the  ques- 
tion for  Galveston. 

I  met  a  charity  worker  from  Oklahoma,  who  told  me 
that  in  the  town  where  she  worked  the  pro  rata  applica- 
tions for  relief  from  the  negroes  were  proportionally  less 
than  they  were  from  the  whites. 

At  Jackson,  Mississippi,  the  Secretary  of  the  Asso- 
ciated Charities  said,  "We  have  a  few  families  of  colored 
people  whom  we  care  for,  but  they  do  not  make  calls 


294  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

upon  the  society  nearly  so  much  as  white  people.  Whether 
it  is  because  they  are  afraid  to,  or  because  the  black 
people  take  care  of  their  own  race,  I  do  not  know." 

Finally  I  went  to  St.  Louis.  Here,  if  anywhere, 
should  be  a  gathering  of  those  who  demanded  charity  aid, 
because  St.  Louis  is  the  mecca  of  every  down-and-out 
negro  in  the  greater  part  of  the  South.  A  darkey  who 
cannot  make  a  living  anywhere  else  goes  to  St.  Louis.  If 
the  negroes  are  not  demanding  special  aid  here,  I  doubt 
if  they  are  doing  it  in  any  part  of  the  United  States. 

I  found  that  the  usual  United  Charity  work  is  here 
done  by  the  St.  Louis  Provident  Association.  All  cases 
coming  to  its  attention,  whether  from  the  white  or  black, 
are  given  equal  and  personal  examinations,  and  such 
assistance  rendered  as  seems  desirable,  without  regard  to 
color  or  race. 

In  its  reports,  they  have  not  kept  the  financial  help 
given  the  negro  separate,  but  they  have  so  segregated 
them  under  the  head  of  "Family  Assisted."  The  year 
1916-1917,  its  workers  told  me,  was  a  fairly  normal  year, 
and  during  the  twelve  months  from  November  first  to 
October  thirty-first  next  there  were  three  thousand  five 
hundred  and  sixty-three  families  assisted,  of  which  six 
hundred  and  nineteen  were  colored.  The  proportion  of 
colored  population  of  St.  Louis  to  white  is  practically 
ten  per  cent.  Figured  upon  this  basis,  this  ten  per  cent 
of  the  city's  population  has  received  seventeen  per  cent 
of  the  "assistance."  But  the  term  "assistance"  does  not 
mean  financial  help ;  it  may,  and  most  frequently  does, 
mean  advice,  situations  found,  or  differences  adjusted. 
Under  the  heading  of  "material  assistance"  they  record 


THE   FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  295 

all  help  consisting  of  moneys  furnished  or  articles  thai- 
cost  money  to  procure.  Under  this  head,  of  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty-two  black  families  "assisted,"  only  for- 
ty-one received  material  help ;  at  the  same  time  of  eleven 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  white  families  so  "assisted," 
three  hundred  and  seventy-eight  had  material  help,  and 
in  each  case  usually  double  what  a  black  family  would 
require.  Only  twelve  per  cent  of  the  blacks  and  thirty- 
two  per  cent  of  the  whites  "assisted"  had  received  ma- 
terial aid.  This  shows  what  the  negroes  wanted  largely 
was  advice,  and  what  the  whites  wanted  was  cash ;  and 
the  negro,  here  as  elsewhere,  so  far  as  material  help  was 
concerned,  was  the  donee  of  the  much  smaller  propor- 
tional amount. 

I  ascertained  during  this  investigation  a  fact  which  I 
did  not  before  know,  and  which  I  think  is  not  generally 
understood,  namely,  that  the  negro,  like  the  Jew,  has  in 
a  great  degree  that  racial  pride  which  Booker  Washing- 
ton so  earnestly  tried  to  cultivate ;  a  pride  which  impels 
him  to  the  best  of  his  ability  to  care  for  his  own  race. 
By  the  combined  efforts  of  their  secret  societies,  their 
insurance  and  burial  associations,  and  their  churches, 
they  are  coming  a  close  second  to  the  Jewish  race  in  the 
good  work  of  caring  for  their  own  people. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  negro  in  his  pros- 
perity does  not  think  of  the  future ;  some  phases  of  it  he 
considers  more  closely  than  the  white  man.  Very  few 
men  or  women  among  the  white  race  have  their  funerals 
provided  and  paid  for;  there  are  very  few  negroes  (at 
least  in  the  cities  of  the  South")  who  have  not  so  arranged 
for  their  final  exit  from  this  world.     By  small  weekly  or 


296  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

monthly  payments,  which  perhaps  have  continued  for 
many  years,  they  have  assured  themselves  of  a  fitting 
burial.  The  inference  follows  without  saying,  that  a  race 
which  will  almost  uniformly  make  provision  for  death 
would  not  be  entirely  neglectful  regarding  disease  and 
old  age ;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  a  very  large  proportion  carry 
old  age  and  accident  insurance. 

There  is  one  senseless  illusion,  more  or  less  current, 
both  North  and  South.  I  have  found  it  everywhere,  even 
among  the  summer-outing  lakes  of  the  park  region  of 
Minnesota.  It  was  stated  to  me  there  by  a  broad-minded 
man  of  education  and  culture,  a  minister  of  the  gospel. 
He  believed  that  the  negro  was  better  of!  as  a  slave  than 
as  a  free  man.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  seen  the  negro 
in  slavery.  No,  he  had  not.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  visited 
the  South  since  emancipation.  No,  nor  had  he  ever  been 
south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  I  asked  him  upon  what 
grounds  he  based  his  opinion  and  he  replied, 

"The  Southerners  say  so  and  they  ought  to  know." 

"What  part  of  the  Southerners  say  so?"  I  enquired. 

"Both  blacks  and  whites,"  he  replied,  "and  that  should 
be  positive  proof." 

He  was  right  when  he  said  both  whites  and  blacks 
make  the  statement,  but  he  would  also  have  been  equally 
correct  had  he  said  that  both  blacks  and  whites  made 
exactly  the  reverse  of  it.  Some  men  of  both  races  make 
it  but  the  white  man  has  doubts  of  its  truth ;  the  black 
man  tells  it  and  doesn't  believe  a  single  word  of  it ;  and 
both  sides  have,  for  them,  sufficient  reasons  for  their 
statement. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  297 

The  average  ex-planter  honestly  believes  today  that 
slavery  is  dead;  that  it  was  a  bad  Institution  for  the  na- 
tion and  for  both  the  blacks  and  whites.  But  he  likes  to 
think  that  the  negro  was  better  off  as  a  slave,  because, 
if  that  be  true,  the  crime  of  his  fathers  is  to  a  large 
extent  justified.  It  is  not  strange  that  he  should  feel  that 
way,  and  when  his  father's  old  slaves  come  to  him  and 
tell  how  much  better  off  they  were  in  slavery  he  begins 
to  believe  it  and  tells  it  as  a  fact  to  his  Northern  visitor. 

So  much  for  the  planter.     What  of  the  negro? 

He  does  not  believe  a  single  syllable  of  what  he  says 
in  that  regard,  and  would  fight  to  his  death  against  any 
return  to  slavery.  He  has  not  the  slightest  idea  of  again 
exposing  his  back  to  the  lash  or  robbing  his  children  of 
their  schools  and  plunging  them  back  into  the  ignorance 
of  darkest  Africa.  He  has  not  the  slightest  wish  to  ex- 
change his  comfortable  wages  or  his  self-tilled  and  per- 
haps self-owned  acres  and  personal  freedom  for  a  peck 
of  corn  and  three  pounds  of  pork  a  week,  constant  servi- 
tude and  confinement  to  plantation  bounds ;  nor  has  he 
the  faintest  desire  to  have  his  boys  sold  to  a  slave  trader 
for  a  foreign  market,  his  daughter  to  the  city  underworld, 
or  his  wife  prostituted  by  some  brutal  overseer.  Not  for 
a  second  would  we  have  any  of  these  things  again  occur. 

Then  why  does  he  say,  "I  was  better  off  in  slavery?" 
Simply  for  this  reason :  centuries  of  life  as  a  slave,  the 
horrors  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan,  and  fifty  years  as  a  f reed- 
man  have  taught  him  he  gets  along  with  the  white  man 
much  better  when  he  agrees  with  him.  He  is  keen  enough 
to  know  there  is  not  the  slightest  danger  of  his  again  be- 
ing made  a  slave ;  he  has  found  out  the  Southern  people 


298  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

like  to  hear  his  song  and  as  they  like  to  hear  it  and  it 
costs  nothing  to  sing  it,  it  is  entirely  inside  the  scope  of 
the  negro's  philosophy  to  give  it  to  them,  especially  when 
an  expected  favor  or  generous  tip  may  be  forthcoming  at 
the  end  of  the  melody. 

I  have  spent  so  much  time  in  the  South  that  I  am 
sometimes  taken  for  a  Southerner.  One  day  a  young 
colored  dandy  picked  me  up  on  the  dock  at  Mobile  and 
started  the  music.  He  had  evidently  sized  me  up  as  a 
planter  from  up  the  river,  and  calculated  to  sing  a  dollar 
or  two  out  of  me.  "Fo  de  lub  of  ole  times,  Boss."  The 
fellow  was  young,  better  dressed  than  I,  and  apparently 
never  had  done  an  honest  day's  work  in  his  life.  I  list- 
ened until  an  old  negro  who  had  evidently  been  a  slave 
was  passing,  when  I  stopped  him,  saying,  "See  here, 
Uncle,  this  young  chap  says  you  negroes  were  better  off 
as  slaves  than  now  when  free.  I  guess  you  have  been  a 
slave,  what  do  you  think  about  it?"  The  old  man  turned 
in  scorn  to  the  young  blood,  and  replied :  "Dat  blamed 
fool,  coffee-colored  nigger  don't  know  wat  he  talking 
about.  Snake  dem  fancy  clos  off  him ;  put  him  in  an  ol 
plantation  suit,  and  git  ma  ol  massa's  oberseer  arter  him 
and  he  change  his  tune  mighty  quick  sure!' 

The  fact  is,  neither  the  Northerner  nor  the  Southerner 
can  stand  cross-examination  upon  this  subject.  Should 
you  commence  to  ask  them  what  phase  of  slavery  the 
negro  is  especially  anxious  to  return  to,  they  immediately 
hedge  by  saying,  "Oh,  we  don't  mean  whipping  and  keep- 
ing them  in  ignorance  and  selling  them — that  was  all 
wrong;  we  mean  their  personal,  physical  condition."  In 
other  words,  they  mean  slavery  without  force,  without 
ignorance,  without  barter  and  sale — an  absolute  impos- 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  299 

sibility.     As  well  might  you  expect  to  have  the  Christian 
religion   without  Christ  as  slavery  without  those  three 

elements. 

Then  again,  should  the  negro  voluntarily  desire  to 
remain  a  slave,  the  absence  of  any  motive  to  constrain  his 
acts  would  so  ruin  his  economic  value  that  John  Ran- 
dolph's ultimatum  would  come  true,  "If  the  negro  did  not 
run  away  from  his  master,  the  master  would  have  to  run 
away  from  his  slave." 

But  for  argument's  sake,  we  will  admit  the  impossible 
and  try  to  compare  two  conditions  that  are  really  incom- 
parable. The  slaves  were  practically  divided  into  two 
classes — house  servants  and  field  hands.  The  house  serv- 
ants were  the  aristocracy  of  the  race;  the  brighter,  more 
intelligent,  and  more  reliable.  But  they  had  no  wages, 
must  be  in  constant  attendance  on  the  master  or  mistress, 
and  were  under  constant  control.  They  ate  the  remains 
from  their  owner's  table, — which  without  doubt  was 
plenty — dressed  in  cast  off  clothes,  often  little  worn  and 
very  fine.  As  a  rule  they  had  no  private  rooms  in  the 
main  house  or  elsewhere,  but  slept  in  halls  and  passages 
or  in  outbuildings.  They  could  not  leave  the  house  with- 
out permission,  or  be  out  of  town  at  any  time  or  in  town 
after  curfew  without  a  written  pass.  Compare  that  con- 
dition with  the  negro  aristocracy  of  today :  the  educated 
and  successful  lawyers,  doctors,  ministers,  teachers,  busi- 
ness men,  and  expert  mechanics,  with  their  homes  and 
families  around  them,  all  free  to  go  where  pleasure  might 
suggest  or  business  dictate.  It  requires  no  argument  to 
decide  these  freemen  have  infinitely  more  of  personal 
comfort  and  intellectual  satisfaction  in  life,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  liberty  and  possession  of  family  and  property. 


300  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Take  the  field  hands  as  compared  with  the  wage-earn- 
ers of  today.  Each  week  the  field  hand  was  given  a  peck 
of  corn  and  three  pounds  of  salt  pork,  which  in  ordinary 
times  would  not  cost  more  than  seventy-five  cents,  and 
during  the  year,  clothing  that  would  cost  not  over  twelve 
dollars — statistics  quoted  elsewhere  say  eight.  This 
would  make  his  weekly  wages  less  than  a  dollar  a  week, 
which  agrees  with  actual  experience  elsewhere  shown. 
In  ordinary  times,  he  now  earns  as  a  freedman  from  one 
to  three  dollars  a  day,  and  in  these  present  war  times 
from  two  to  five  dollars  a  day.  Again,  with  the  wage 
worker  as  with  the  house  servant,  there  appears  a  condi- 
tion that  requires  no  debate  to  establish  his  present 
incalculably  superior  condition.  I  never  found  a  black 
man  honestly  speaking  who  did  not  say  it  was  foolish 
to  consider  otherwise. 

A  successful  business  man,  born  a  slave  in  Virginia, 
sold  and  sent  to  Texas,  who  had  worked  upon  plantations 
and  also  had  been  a  house  servant,  told  me  "an  ordinary 
wage  worker  in  the  city  today  is  ten  times  better  off  than 
a  plantation  slave  of  the  past" ;  also  "the  condition  of  the 
higher  and  more  intelligent  portion  of  the  negroes  now 
is  so  far  above  that  of  house  servants  that  no  comparison 
could  be  made." 

A  retired  negro  preacher  said  that  he  was  a  slave, 
full-grown,  when  emancipation  came.  He  was  a  house 
servant  for  a  while,  then  hired  his  time  of  his  master  and 
worked  for  a  firm  of  negro  traders  who  bought  slaves  in 
Virginia  and  sold  them  in  the  Southwest.  He  had  seen 
slavery  in  all  its  forms,  and  he  stoutly  asserted  that  house 
servants  were  the  best  used  of  all  slaves,  yet  a  negro  in 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  301 

the  lowest  industrial  position,  a  daily  wage  earner,  is 
today  ten  times  better  off  in  every  way  than  such  house 
servants  though  privileged  as  they  were. 

Both  these  men  told  me  that  they  never  heard  a  negro 
say  when  talking  frankly  among  themselves  that  they 
were  in  any  way  better  off  as  slaves. 

The  principal  of  the  colored  high  school  at  San 
Antonio  was  surprised  when  I  asked  him  the  question, 
and  refused  to  believe  there  were  any  people  who  even 
thought  slaves  were  better  off  in  any  respect  than  frced- 
men;  I  had  to  prove  by  instances  and  facts  of  such  opin- 
ion before  I  could  make  him  believe  I  was  in  earnest. 
Then  he  said,  very  indignantly,  "The  idea  is  preposterous 
and  has  no  foundation  whatever  in  fact." 

Another  man,  principal  of  a  graded  school,  said,  "I 
have  taught  and  been  constantly  with  negroes  twenty- 
nine  years,  in  country  and  city,  sometimes  where  the 
whites  persecuted  the  blacks  almost  unbearably,  but  I 
never  heard  a  negro  say  he  was  in  any  respect  better  off 
as  a  slave." 

The  last  resort  of  those  who  believe  the  slave  was 
better  off  than  the  freedman  is  to  admit,  as  they  are 
compelled  to,  that  the  negroes  who  have  won  professions, 
or  are  teaching,  or  in  paying  business,  or  even  wage 
earners,  are  better  off;  but  they  insist  that  they  are  im- 
provident, do  not  save  their  money,  and  when  they  get 
old  they  have  no  one  to  care  for  them  now  as  when  in 
slavery.  However  little  money  the  freedman  may  save, 
he  certainly  accumulates  more  than  he  did  in  slavery,  and 
I  think  I  have  shown  that  the  care  and  assistance  the 
negro  people  mutually  give  each  other  is  more  abundant 


302  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

and  far  preferable  to  the  doled  and  uncertain  sustenance 
of  their  former  owners.  If  I  have  not  made  my  argument 
clear  allow  me  to  call  some  expert  evidence. 

She  was  hobbling  through  the  street  of  San  Antonio, 
gray-haired,  bent  double  with  age,  crippled,  but  her  eye 
was  keen  and  her  mind  alert. 

"How  old  are  you,  Auntie?"  I  asked. 

"Lawsy,  child!  I'se  near  a  hundred,"  she  replied — a 
favorite  age  for  an  old  darkey. 

"Where  were  you  born?" 

"In  ol  Kentuck,  Massa." 

"Then  you  have  been  a  slave?" 

"Yes,  Massa,  many,  many  years." 

"Were  you  a  field  hand  or  a  house  servant?" 

"I  war  a  field  han'  until  I  boke  my  shoulder,  thar,  as 
you  see,  den  I  war  in  de  house." 

"Now,  Auntie,  I  am  one  of  those  'Yanks'  who  came 
down  here  and  helped  set  you  free,  and  now  people  up 
North  are  telling  me  that  you  were  better  off  as  slaves.  I 
want  to  know  what  you  think.  Was  it  a  good  or  a  poor 
job  done  when  you  were  set  free?" 

"Law,  Massa!  It  was  a  mighty  good  job — a  mighty 
good  job;  I  can't  tell  how  good  it  was  cause  wes  free 
now." 

"Yes,  I  understand  that,  Auntie ;  nobody  can  buy  and 
sell  you,  but  we  will  pass  that  by ;  I  want  to  know  about 
your  personal  comforts.  Do  you  darkies  as  a  whole  have 
more  or  less  to  eat  than  you  had  as  slaves?" 

"We  gets  lots  mo'  to  eat  and  its  better  dan  de  ration 
of  pork  and  corn  we  had  on  de  plantation." 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  303 

"How  about  clothes ;  are  they  better  or  poorer  ?" 

"Law,  Massa,  dey  ar  lots  better  now  dan  den." 

"Now,  Auntie,  I  don't  mind  what  you  darkies  tell  to 
the  white  people,  but  when  darkies  talk  among  them- 
selves, did  you  ever  hear  any  of  them  say  that  they  were 
better  off  when  slaves  than  when  free?" 

"Nebber,  sir,  nebber,  and  a  darky  would  be  a  low 
down,  no  count,  crazy  nigger  who  would  say  so." 

And  having  so  expressed  her  utmost  scorn  at  the 
foolish  idea,  she  hobbled  away.  This  was  what  might  be 
called  "expert  evidence"  on  that  question;  it  certainly  is 
not  hearsay.  She  had  been  helpless  and  sick  both  as  a 
slave  and  a  free  woman,  and  was  fully  qualified  to 
testify. 

Here  is  another  person  also  fully  able  to  qualify  as 
a  witness.  She  was  over  seventy  years  old,  living  in  St. 
Louis.  She  said:  "I  was  a  pretty  well-grown  girl  at 
emancipation.  I  was  a  house  servant  in  Nashville,  Ten- 
nessee. House  servants  did  not  have  rooms  to  them- 
selves, but  slept  on  the  floor,  in  halls,  or  outside  rooms. 
I  am  a  great  deal  better  off  now.  Although  it  is  some- 
times hard  to  work  to  get  things  to  eat  and  wear,  I  have 
more  than  I  would  get  as  a  slave,  to  say  nothing  of  being 
my  own  boss  and  not  being  in  danger  of  a  whipping  at 
the  whim  of  some  one  else.  Anyone  who  says  a  negro 
was  better  off  as  a  slave  is  a  fool.  He  better  go  'way 
back  and  sit  down." 

I  could  fill  a  volume  with  such  interviews  were  it 
desirable,  but  they  would  all  be  testimony  to  the  same 
condition — a   needless   repetition.     The   epitome   of   the 


304  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

whole  may  be  condensed  into  this :  In  all  my  investigation 
I  have  never  met  a  negro  who  sincerely  said  or  thought 
he  was  better  off  in  any  respect  in  slavery  than  in  freedom, 
and  I  have  never  met  one  who  had  heard  another  negro 
honestly  express  that  idea.  The  whole  proposition  is 
false :  the  black  man  is  incomparably  better  off  as  a  f reed- 
man.  He  is  not  falling  into  barbarism;  he  is  rising  into 
civilization,  very  slowly  at  first,  but  now  with  increas- 
ing rapidity. 

Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  negro  is  with  us  to 
stay.  He  is  too  numerous  to  send  away  to  any  foreign 
land  even  if  he  wanted  to  go,  and  he  does  not  wish  to 
leave  us,  nor — to  tell  the  truth — do  we  desire  to  have 
him;  we  need  his  brawn  and  his  strength  as  much  as  he 
our  brain  and  wealth.  The  South  has  learned  to  live 
with  him  as  a  freeman  who  has  rights  they  are  bound 
to  respect.  It  is  now  helping  him  educationally  and  ma- 
terially, and  they  are  pulling  together  so  harmoniously 
and  effectively  that  the  North  will  have  to  look  to  its 
laurels  or  the  South  will  take  industrial  supremacy  away 
from  it. 

Those  who  have  worked  the  longest  with  the  negro, 
and  have  done  the  most  to  help  him,  have  the  greatest 
confidence  in,  and  hope  for,  his  ultimate  success. 

In  the  greater  part  of  the  South  he  is  now  given  a 
chance  for  education,  is  permitted  an  equal  opportunity 
to  work  for  a  living  and  to  save  and  expend  his  earnings 
as  he  sees  fit.  So  long  as  this  condition  continues — and 
I  believe  it  will  to  an  increasing  degree —  I  have  no  fear 
but  that  the  negro  will  become  an  essential  part  of  our 
nation. 


THE  FREEING  OF  THE  NEGRO  305 

He  will  not  become  so  by  amalgamation  or  social  con- 
solidation— that  is  desired  by  neither  race — but  as  a  com- 
plement of,  a  factor  in,  our  growing  nation  that  will  carry 
it  to  its  assured  future  greatness.  Such  was  the  hope  of 
the  great  leader  of  the  black  race,  Booker  T.  Washington, 
and  such,  I  devoutly  trust,  may  be  the  fruition  of  his 
life-long  desire. 


PART    IV 


SOME 
FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS 


SOME   MX  DINGS   OF  THREE   WARS  3<>J 

CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Section  I.     Its  Opening  and  Civil  Conditions 

Like  the  bursting  of  a  thunder-storm  on  a  level  plain, 
like  the  whirl  of  a  cyclone  on  a  pleasant  day,  like  the 
downpour  of  a  cloudburst  in  a  mountain  canyon,  came 
the  Civil  War  to  the  people  of  the  North.  I  was  twenty 
years  old  when  it  happened ;  I  was  teaching  school  and 
was  reasonably  well  versed  in  the  affairs  of  my  country. 
But,  like  my  friends  and  neighbors,  I  did  not  expect  such 
a  calamity.  Of  course  we  knew  that  the  Southern  people 
had  objected  to  the  Missouri  Compromise,  because  it  pre- 
vented them  from  taking  their  slaves  to  the  territory 
north  of  36  degrees  and  30  minutes.  We  realized  that 
the  Southern  states  had  complained  with  more  or  less 
reason  of  losing  their  negroes  by  their  running  away  to 
the  North,  and  we  had  good  reason  to  remember  that 
they  had,  at  one  time,  violently  opposed  our  protective 
tariff  laws,  because  they  had  no  factories  to  be  benefited. 

But  all  these  wrongs,  real  or  imagined,  we  supposed 
had  been  set  right.  The  tariff  had  been  reduced  nearly 
to  a  revenue  basis,  and  no  opposition  had  we  heard  from 
our  Southern  brothers  on  that  score  for  years.  The  Mis- 
souri Compromise  had  been  declared  unconstitutional  by 
the  "Dred  Scott  Decision."  "Fugitive  Slave  Laws"  had 
been  passed,  permitting  slave-holders  to  follow  their 
slaves  to  any  Northern  city,  hamlet,  or  farm,  and  re- 
quiring any  Northern  man,  regardless  of  sympathy,  to 
aid  the  master  and  refrain  from  helping  the  slaves.  What 
more  could  be  done  to  satisfy  our  Southern  brothers  ? 


310  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

History  had  told  us  that  the  South,  through  the 
Democratic  party  which  it  controlled,  had  for  years  held 
possession  of  all  the  branches  of  government — legislative, 
judicial,  executive;  and  for  nearly  half  a  century  only 
such  men  as  it  endorsed  could  hold  any  appointive  office, 
either  in  the  United  States  or  as  minister  to  any  foreign 
court,  or  consul  to  any  commercial  city  abroad.  All  this 
being  true,  why  should  any  Southern  state  want  to  se- 
cede ?     It  was  preposterous :  we  could  not  believe  it. 

To  make  our  assurance  doubly  sure,  we  remembered 
that  once  before,  in  1832,  South  Carolina  had  tried 
secession,  under  the  name  of  nullification,  and  a  president 
of  her  own  nativity  and  choice  had  told  her  in  no  un- 
certain terms,  that,  'kby  the  Eternal,  the  Union  must  and 
should  be  maintained."  Surely,  Andrew  Jackson  was 
good  authority  for  any  Southern  Democrat,  and  that 
ought  to  settle  the  matter. 

But  there  were  three  things  that  the  Northern  people 
did  not  know,  or,  knowing,  did  not  consider :  First,  that 
the  Southern  people  deemed  the  states  supreme,  and  the 
general  government  only  an  agent  therefor.  Second,  that 
they  had  been  watching  politics  more  closely  than  we  of 
the  North,  and  that  they  foresaw,  clearer  than  we,  a  time 
coming  when  their  supposed  agent,  the  United  States, 
would  not  be  as  subservient  to  them  as  in  the  past.  Third, 
that  their  leaders  had  seen  a  vision  of  a  great  slave- 
ocracy,  composed  of  the  slave  states  of  the  South, 
together  with  Cuba,  Nicaragua,  and  perhaps  Mexico, 
wherein  the  the  slave  owner  should  reign  supreme, 
untroubled  by  abolition  ideas,  and  unvexed  by  any  negro 
uplift  work. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE   WARS  311 

Already  it  was  a  Southern  slogan,  "Cuba  must  be  an- 
nexed," willingly  or  unwillingly,  and  Nicaragua  had 
already  been  invaded  by  filibusters  like  "Walker's  men," 
-nine  of  whom  I  knew  well.  These  men,  unchallenged 
by  our  administration,  had  at  one  time  gained  control  of 
that  country,  annulled  its  free  constitution,  and  made  it 
a  slave  nation.  These  leaders  and  dreamers  of  the  South 
joyfully  hailed  the  separation  from  the  North  as  the  first 
long  step  in  the  direction  of  their  desire. 

Meanwhile  we  of  the  North,  lulled  in  the.  arms  of 
ignorance  and  confidence,  slept  while  the  South  was  ap- 
propriating our  forts,  arsenals,  and  arms,  and  was  vigo- 
rously drilling  her  men  preparatory  to  active  war.  It  was 
not  until  the  12th  and  13th  of  April,  1861,  when  the  rebel 
batteries  at  Fort  Moultrie,  Cummings  Point,  and  Castle 
Pinckney  were  pouring  their  devastating  shower  of 
cannon  ball,  bursting  shell,  and  red-hot  shot  upon  our 
little  band  of  Union  men,  at  Fort  Sumter,  who  under 
this  fearful  storm  and  amid  the  flames  of  their  own  burn- 
ing barracks  refused  to  surrender.  Not  until  then,  while 
millions  of  people  in  the  North  stood  at  the  telegraph 
offices  listening  to  the  hourly  reports  of  that  tragic  event, 
were  we  at  last  convinced  that  there  was  war  in  the 
land — war  with  all  its  terror,  all  its  costs,  and  all  its 
death  toll.  Braving  the  issue,  we  immediately  set  about 
preparing  for  it. 

The  indignation  over  the  insult  to  our  flag  and  the 
determination  to  sustain  the  Union  were  at  the  North  as 
general  as  our  previous  apathy  and  doubt  had  been 
dilatory  and  slothful.  President  Lincoln  immediately 
called  for  seventy-five  thousand  men,  who  were  promptly 


312  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

tendered  by  the  states  many  times  over.  But  even  yet 
the  magnitude  of  the  strife  that  was  before  us  was  not 
conceived.  Our  thought  was  that  these  seventy-five 
thousand  men — the  largest  army  ever  mustered  on  this 
continent — would  march  irresistibly  to  Richmond  and 
return  with  everything  properly  settled  within  the  three 
months  for  which  they  were  enlisted.  We  even  called  our 
later-time  hero,  W.  T.  Sherman,  crazy  and  he  was  dis- 
credited in  the  service  because  he  understood  conditions 
at  the  South  and  foresaw  more  correctly  the  size  of  the 
war  to  come.  We  still  thought  that  to  re-establish  the 
Union  was  a  picnic  job,  and  that  no  serious  fighting  would 
be  involved. 

But  the  nation  was  doomed  to  a  rude  awakening. 
The  awakening  came  on  the  21st  day  of  July,  1861,  about 
three  o'clock  p.  m.,  from  the  top  of  Henry  House  hill. 
It  was  the  culmination  of  a  battle-field  that  had  been  well 
planned,  gallantly  conducted,  and,  up  to  that  time,  vic- 
toriously fought.  Then  and  there  Generals  Kerby  Smith 
and  J.  A.  Earle  brought  their  two  fresh  Confederate 
brigades  upon  the  flank  of  our  Union  boys,  who  had  then 
been  marching  and  fighting  since  2  130  o'clock  that  morn- 
ing, and  changed  the  apparent  victory  of  Bull  Run  into  a 
dire  defeat — a  defeat  that  afterwards  grew  into  causeless 
and  shameful  panic.  It  was  a  panic  such  as  any  troops 
not  yet  ninety  days  in  service  might  at  any  time  be  sub- 
ject to,  but  a  panic  that  did  not  extend  to  the  units  of 
the  regular  army  and  older  organizations.  It  was  a  dis- 
organization that  the  victorious  enemy  was  not  entirely 
exempt  from,  for  even  General  Johnston,  their  com- 
mander says,  "Our  army  was  more  disorganized  by  vic- 
tory than  the  United  States  by  defeat." 


SOME   FINDINGS  OF  THREE   WARS  313 

The  nation  at  first  stood  paralyzed  by  surprise.  But 
the  next  day  when  Congress  answered  that  defeat  by 
authorizing  the  mobilization  of  500,000  men,  and  Lincoln, 
in  conformity  thereto,  called  out  three  hundred  thousand, 
it  was  ready.  From  all  over  the  North,  from  Maine  to 
California,  from  field  and  workshop,  from  schoolhouse 
and  office  and  store,  from  all  trades  and  all  professions 
came  the  answer,  "We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  six 
hundred  thousand  more."  During  the  coming  long  war, 
this  song  rang  over  the  land  again  and  again,  until  more 
than  three  times  six  hundred  thousand  men  went  to  the 
front. 

The  day  after  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Bull  Run 
came,  I  enlisted,  like  thousands  of  other  young  men. 
The  excitement  was  intense  everywhere.  Not  a  city  was 
so  large  nor  a  village  so  small  that  it  did  not  have  the 
flag  flying  and  the  fife  and  drum  calling  recruits  to  the 
standard.  Nothing  in  the  Great  War  anywhere  ap- 
proached it. 

The  conditions  of  organization  in  the  two  wars  were 
different,  and  methods  of  assembling  diverse.  In  the 
Civil  War  the  volunteer  was  the  rule,  and  the  drafted 
man  the  exception.  In  the  Great  War,  the  drafted  man 
was  the  rule  and  the  volunteer  the  exception.  In  the  first 
war  each  town  or  village,  without  any  outside  aid, 
gathered  its  own  men  who  elected  their  own  officers  be- 
fore starting  and  became  a  complete  smaller  or  larger 
unit  before  leaving  their  own  home. 

In  the  Great  War  the  recruiting  or  drafting  officer  of 
the  general  government  took  the  recruits  as  fast  as  they 
volunteered,  or  were  selected,  to  some  general   rendez- 


314  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

vous.  There  they  were  placed  in  units  as  required  and 
given  such  officers  as  the  government  designated,  without 
regard  to  the  desires  of  the  men  or  where  they  came 
from.    Even  brothers  might  be  placed  in  different  units. 

It  can  readily  be  seen  that  the  Civil  War  method 
would  cause  the  more  enthusiasm,  and  bring  forth  the 
greater  show  of  patriotism.  Combine  a  circus,  a  general 
election,  and  a  Fourth  of  July  celebration  into  one  demon- 
stration, and  it  might  somewhere  nearly  approach  the 
appearance  and  excitement  of  an  average  town  where 
several  companies  were  being  recruited  at  the  same  time. 
The  flying  colors,  the  martial  music,  the  strenuous  recruit- 
ing method,  and  the  lavish  expenditures  of  would-be 
officers,  together  with  the  efforts  of  "their  wives,  their 
sisters,  their  cousins,  and  their  aunts"  to  induce  the 
boys,  first  to  enlist,  and  then  to  join  the  right  companies, 
made  a  scene  never  before  equaled  in  the  history  of  this 
nation,  and,  owing  to  our  present  better  methods,  never 
to  be  seen  again. 

It  was  fitting  and  certain  that  the  departure  of  such 
units,  enlisted,  organized  and  officered  at  the  home  town, 
would  be  a  formal  and  ever  memorable  event.  All  the 
town  participated,  and  the  boys  in  such  leave-taking  were 
sent  away  with  much  feasting,  many  speeches,  loud 
cheers,  and  in  a  blaze  of  glory  that  conditions  did  not 
permit  in  our  late  war. 

But  the  home  partings — sons  from  parents,  husbands 
from  wives,  brothers  from  sisters,  and  nearest  one  from 
dearest  ones,  partings  that  "took  the  life  from  out  young 
hearts" — were  as  full  of  sadness  and  forboding  in  one 
war  as  in  the  other. 


SOME   FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  315 

hi  both  wars  there  were  millions  of  homes  in  which 
there  were  such  partings.  But  this  difference  obtained: 
there  were,  in  the  North  alone,  tlirice  as  many  homes 
desolated  in  the  first  war  as  in  the  last.  There  were,  by 
government  statistics,  over  three  times  as  many  men  in  the 
Civil  war  who  did  not  return  as  in  the  Great  War ;  three 
times  as  many  hearts  broken;  three  times  as  many  vacant 
chairs ;  three  times  as  many  graves  to  decorate.  But  what 
was  the  comparative  cost  of  the  two  wars  to  the  home 
circle!  Three  times  as  many  men  died  from  less  than 
one-third  as  great  a  population — making  over  nine  times 
as  great  pro  rata  loss.  Only  he  who,  like  myself,  has 
lived  through  both  conflicts  can  realize  the  relative  mag- 
nitude. 

How  anxious  we  new  recruits  were  to  get  to  the 
front!  The  cars  did  not  run  fast  enough,  the  boats  that 
carried  us  were  too  slow,  the  camps  of  instruction  held 
us  too  long.  We  were  afraid  the  war  would  end  before 
we  had  a  hand  in  it.  We  had  not  the  slightest  conception 
of  the  magnitude  of  the  struggle  upon  which  we  were 
entering;  I  am  certain  I  had  not.  When  I  called  my 
pupils  that  last  morning  and  told  them  that  school  was 
dismissed  for  I  was  going  to  the  war,  and  then  turned 
my  back  and  fled  from  the  sobbing  children,  I  had  not 
the  slightest  idea  that  four  and  a  half  years  would  elapse 
before  I  should  return,  and  that  upon  my  discharge 
would  be.  certified  twenty-seven  battles  and  skirmishes  in 
which  I  had  been  personally  engaged. 

What  a  mob  there  was  of  us  when  we  got  together  in 
camp !  The  depth  of  our  ignorance  in  military  matters 
would  be  difficult  to  comprehend  by  a  person  of  this  day. 
"Coxey's   Army"   which   marched   upon   Washington   in 


316  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  last  years  of  the  past  century,  was  a  disciplined  organ- 
ization alongside  of  us.  Between  a  colonel  and  a  corp- 
oral we  hardly  knew  which  one  outranked,  and  the  worst 
of  it  was  we  did  not  especially  see  the  necessity  of  know- 
ing. This  dense  ignorance  would  have  been  amusing  if 
it  had  not  been  tragic. 

Think  of  it !  These  thousands  of  young  men,  the  pick 
of  the  country,  honest,  patriotic,  with  their  lives  in  their 
hands,  and  willing  to  give  those  lives  for  their  country, 
went  into  battle,  "the  blind  leading  the  blind"  into  those 
"Bull  Runs"  of  death  and  disaster,  big  and  little,  that 
dotted  our  long  battle  line  during  the  first  year  and  a  half 
of  the  Civil  War.  All  because  the  North  was  so  peace- 
fully inclined  that  she  had  ceased  preparing  for  war  and 
had  ridiculed  our  old  New  England  training-days  out  of 
existence. 

The  South,  on  the  other  hand,  had  retained  its  mili- 
tary traditions  and  habits,  and  when  the  war  came  it  had 
a  much  greater  nucleus  of  trained  and  semi-trained  men 
upon  which  to  build  their  army  than  we  of  the  North. 
This  great  advantage  on  the  Southern  side  decided  many 
results,  especially  in  the  early  part  of  the  conflict, 

In  talking  to  me  of  those  days  of  disunion  and  seces- 
sion, a  young  man  not  long  ago  said,  "I  suppose,  Mr. 
Burnap,  every  one  in  the  North  was  loyal  at  that  time." 
The  young  man  was  wrong,  but  he  voiced  the  idea  cur- 
rent among  the  younger  generation  today,  an  idea  born 
and  perpetuated  in  their  minds  by  careless  or  ignorant 
writers  and  teachers  upon  that  subject.  Even  within  the 
last  few  days  I  have  encountered  this  error  in  two  stand- 
ard works.     One,  written  on  the  question  of  secession 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  317 

from  the  Southern  viewpoint,  says,  "South  Carolina  and 
the  South  rose  as  one  man."  The  other,  from  a  North- 
ern outlook,  says :  "The  effect  produced  by  the  capture  of 
Fort  Sumter  was  instantaneous  and  universal."  Both 
writers  were  wrong,  as  everyone  knows  who  is  old 
enough  to  remember  those  times.  Neither  the  North  nor 
the  South  was  unanimous  either  for  or  against  the  war. 

Consider  the  case  of  the  South.  She  had  two  distinct 
classes  of  white  citizens.  First,  the  large  planters  and 
those  connected  with  their  interests ;  these  resided  largely 
in  the  level  lands  and  fertile  valleys.  Second,  the  so 
called  "poor  white  trash,"  who  lived  to  a  great  extent  in 
the  mountain  districts  of  the  Alleghanies  in  Virginia,  the 
Carolinas,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  and  Georgia, 
in  the  East,  and  the  Ozarks  in  Missouri  and  Arkansas  in 
the  West. 

These  mountains  extend  their  rolling  hills  much 
farther  than  any  of  our  atlases  begin  to  show,  and  the 
people  who  inhabit  them  constituted  a  very  large  part  of 
the  population  of  these  states,  three-fourths,  Burgess  says 
— and  they  had  no  love  for  either  slavery  or  slave 
institutions.  These  so-called  "crackers"  were  not  the 
worthless,  degenerate  scum  of  the  earth  that  they  are 
usually  painted.  They  were  mainly  a  mixture  of  Scotch- 
Irish  and  Huguenot  stock,  with  perhaps  a  dash  of 
British,  Swiss,  and  Welsh.  They  had  remained  poor, 
ignorant,  and  uncouth,  not  from  any  inherited  disability 
to  be  otherwise,  but  because  in  their  isolation  and  inde- 
pendence they  had  grown  to  disdain  the  things  by  us 
called  better.  Many  a  "cracker"  father,  as  proud  and 
haughty  as  the  old  Earl  Douglas  in  Marmion,  could  say 
so  far  as  education  is  concerned: 


318  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

"Thanks  to  St.  Bothan,  son  of  mine, 
Save  Gawain,  ne'er  could  pen  a  line; 
So  swore  I,  and  I  swear  it  still, 
Let  my  boy-bishop,  fret  his  fill/' 

These  hunters  and  rifle  dead  shots  of  the  mountains, 
like  the  mail-clad  warriors  of  old,  looked  upon  letters  as 
needless  accomplishments,  not  as  things  to  be  desired, 
but  as  feminine  and  priestly  attainments  to  be  avoided; 
for  stalwart  men  had  more  important  work  to  do. 

While  the  Puritans  of  New  England  had  been  build- 
ing up  New  York,  Ohio,  and  the  Northern  Northwest, 
these  English  dissenters,  Scotch  Covenanters,  and 
Huguenot  refugees — certainly  the  Calvinist  Puritans  of 
the  South — had  sent  their  children  down  the  western 
slope  of  the  Alleghany  mountains,  and  populated  Ten- 
nessee, Kentucky,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  and  southern 
Indiana  and  Illinois.  No  better  men  were  ever  given  a 
great  work,  and  they  became,  in  the  main,  uneducated 
and  unpolished,  not  because  they  lacked  ability,  but  be- 
cause they  could  not  see  how  learning  and  art  would  help 
them  fight  the  Indians,  or  clear  their  land,  or  raise  their 
crops.  General  O.  O.  Howard,  who  commanded  the 
right  wing  of  Sherman's  army  from  "Atlanta  to  the 
Sea"  became  interested  in  these  mountaineers,  and  after 
the  war  closed,  engaged  in  promoting  schools  for  them. 
He  told  me  that  pupils  from  these  institutions  would 
compare  favorably  with  any  in  the  land. 

The  presidential  chair  at  Washington  can  also  give 
testimony  to  this  fact ;  at  least  three  of  its  occupants  have 
come  from  these  people  and  their  environment.  Andrew 
Jackson  was  born  in  a  small  log  cabin  in  a  locality  so 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  319 

little  noted  it  is  uncertain  on  which  side  of  the  line  be- 
tween the  two  Carolinas  it  stood.  His  book  education 
"consisted  of  hardly  more  than  the  three  R's,"  "and 
even  in  that  limited  sphere  his  attainments  were  not 
large."  Abraham  Lincoln,  born  in  a  log  cabin  in  the 
state  of  Kentucky,  was  mainly  self-educated,  his  father 
could  neither  read  nor  write  except  to  scrawl  his  name. 
Andrew  Johnson  learned  to  read  and  write  from  his  wife 
after  he  was  married.  He  was  very  poor  as  a  boy,  and 
his  father  was  unknown.  Whatever  else  can  be  said  of 
these  men,  no  one  can  accuse  them  of  lack  of  native  talent. 

These  mountain  whites  would  have  made  themselves 
far  more  strongly  felt  in  secession  times  than  they  did 
had  it  not  been  their  habit  to  leave  politics  to  the  planters, 
and  had  not  the  John  Brown  raid  upon  Harper's  Ferry 
led  them  to  fear  a  negro  insurrection  in  case  the  North 
succeeded. 

As  it  was,  all  things  considered,  they  accomplished 
wonders.  They  split  Virginia  into  two  parts,  and 
founded  the  State  of  West  Virginia.  Despite  the  seces- 
sion executives  of  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  they  kept 
these  states  both  in  the  Union;  and  in  Tennessee,  the 
Carolinas,  Alabama,  Georgia,  and  Mississippi  they  were 
a  veritable  "thorn  in  the  flesh"  to  the  Confederate  govern- 
ment. They  furnished  thousands  of  individual  men  and 
many  complete  regiments  to  the  Union  Army.  Surely 
that  is  a  long  way  from  the  statement  that  "South  Caro- 
lina and  the  South  rose  as  one  man." 

This  matter  with  me  is  no  "hearsay  evidence."  Prob- 
ably few  men  now  living  can  testify  to  the  actual  facts  in 
this  case  with  more  personal  knowledge   than   I.     For 


320  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

years  my  regiment  served  alongside  of  military  units 
composed  of  men  whose  homes  were  in  this  part  of  the 
South,  and  it  fought  and  campaigned  through  the  most  of 
the  states  mentioned.  From  individual  observation  and 
conversation  with  these  people,  both  then  and  later,  I 
know  for  a  certainty  something  of  what  they  did  and 
suffered. 

We  laud  a  young  man  who  in  the  excitement  of  an 
enlistment  campaign,  with  every  inducement  of  future 
emoluments,  present  renown,  and  urged  by  the  smiles  of 
.his  girl  friends,  volunteers  in  his  country's  cause,  and  it 
is  well  we  should  do  so.  But  what  greater  praise  should 
that  one  deserve,  who,  braving  the  scorn  of  the  ruling 
class  of  his  town  and  section,  and  sacrificing  his  hopes 
for  future  recognition  and  advancement  therein,  shall,  at 
the  risk  of  his  life,  hiding  days  and  traveling  nights, 
without  shelter  or  food,  walk  hundreds  of  miles  for  the 
same  purpose.  Yet  that  was  what  thousands  of  these 
Southern  "crackers"  did. 

The  devices  these  men  found  to  keep  out  of  the  con- 
federate army  were  many  and  ingenious.  When  scouting 
through  their  country,  as  elsewhere  in  the  South,  we 
found  no  able-bodied  men  at  home;  but  here,  in  place  of 
their  being  in  the  rebel  army,  they  were  "Greenwood 
Volunteers."  They  were  hid  out  in  the  mountains  to 
escape  the  conscript  officers.  When  the  women  were  told 
that  we  might  remain  in  their  locality  for  several  days, 
"grape  vine  despatches"  were  sent  out  and  the  men  ap- 
peared for  a  short  visit  at  their  own  homes,  but  the 
moment  we  left  they  again  vanished.  Here  the  Con- 
federate conscripting  officer's  outfit  required  a  pack  of 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  321 

bloodhounds  and  a  strong  force  of  men — the  hounds  to 
find  the  men,  and  the  force  to  capture  them  when  found. 
Of  what  value  men  so  recruited  were  I  have  my  doubts, 
but  I  do  know  that  during  the  war  many  such  deserted 
from  the  Confederates  and  came  to  us. 

This  devotion  and  sacrifice  of  the  Union  men  of  the 
South  is  little  understood,  and  many  times  is  so  com- 
pletely misrepresented,  that  I  cannot  refrain  from  corro- 
borating what  I  have  said  by  making  extracts  from  the 
modestly-told  story  of  L.  H.  Naron,  or  "Chickasaw"  as 
he  was  known  to  our  army.  Chickasaw  was  so  named 
for  the  county  of  Mississippi  from  which  he  came.  At 
one  time  he  was  connected  with  the  same  cavalry  corps 
headquarters  where  I  served  for  one  year ;  he  as  chief  of 
spies  and  scouts,  while  I  was  in  charge  of  the  Adjutant 
General's  office  and  commanded  the  orderlies. 

He  was  known  and  absolutely  trusted  by  Generals 
Sherman,  Pope,  Rosecrans,  Dodge,  and  others,  who  com- 
manded in  that  department  at  various  times.  His  reports 
of  the  positions  and  activities  of  the  enemy,  as  ascer- 
tained by  personal  investigation  by  himself  or  subordi- 
nates, was  always  believed  and  acted  upon — once  only 
excepted.  This  exception  was  when  he  first  came  to  us 
from  the  South  and  reported  to  General  Sherman  at 
Pittsburg  Landing  that  the  rebels  were  moving  upon  him 
in  full  force.  Sherman  did  not  believe  him,  and  the 
disaster  of  that  first  day's  battle  at  that  place  was  the 
result. 

After  that,  during  three  years'  active  and  nearly  con- 
tinual service  with  our  army,  his  report  was  never 
doubted.     lie  told  his  experiences  to  a  comrade  of  mine, 


322  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Sergt.  R.  W.  Surby,  of  7th  Illinois  Cavalry,  who  pub- 
lished them  in  1865,  and  from  that  publication  I  make 
extracts.  Every  word  between  quotation  marks  is 
"Chickasaw's,"  and  may  be  relied  upon,  for  the  whole 
army,  time  and  again,  risked  death  or  disaster  upon  his 
veracity,  and  never  were  deceived.  Remember  the 
astonishing  fact  that  in  the  quotations  presented  the  nar- 
rator is  talking  of  Chickasaw  County,  Mississippi,  almost 
the  center  of  the  Confederacy. 

"In  the  spring  of  1861  I  secretly  organized  three 
hundred  Union  men  in  Mississippi,  with  the  promise  of 
nine  hundred  more,  making  a  full  regiment.  It  was  my 
intention,  at  that  time,  to  place  the  regiment  at  the  serv- 
ice of  Governor  Pettis,  of  Mississippi,  for  the  purpose  of 
enforcing  the  state  of  South  Carolina  to  adhere  to  the 
Union.  Some  six  weeks  afterward  an  answer  was  re- 
ceived from  Governor  Pettis,  saying  he  would  accept  our 
services  to  the  gallows."  What  a  surprise  this  may  be  to 
some!  A  Union  regiment  raised  not  far  from  Central 
Mississippi  and  tendered  to  its  government  to  crush  out 
the  rebellion! 

"The  Governor  soon  found  it  necessary  to  organize 
a  Vigilance  Committee  for  the  purpose  of  subduing  the 
strong  Union  feeling  then  rising  in  that  part  of  the  state. 
The  manner  in  which  this  committee  was  formed  was 
as  follows :  the  Governor  appoined  the  probate  clerk  of 
each  county  to  act  as  president  of  the  county  committee, 
which  consisted  of  twelve  men;  the  probate  clerks  ap- 
pointed five  sub-presidents,  to  act  in  their  respective  dis- 
tricts, and  take  cognizance  of  all  the  acts  and  words 
of  the  people,  and  report  the  same  to  the  president — 


SOME  FINDINGS   OF  THREE  WARS  323 

probate  clerk.  The  first  proceeding  of  this  committee 
was — under  pretense  that  the  Confederate  government 
needed  all  the  arms  in  the  country  to  be  placed  at  the 
disposal  of  volunteers  in  the  field — to  issue  an  order  for 
citizens  to  turn  over,  at  the  county  seat,  all  arms  in  their 
possession,  for  which  they  would  receive  receipts.  The 
committee  then  seized  upon  all  •  the  ammunition  in  the 
stores  throughout  the  country."  Note  the  successful  plan 
to  disarm  all  Union  men  and  deprive  them  of  ammuni- 
tion. 

"Some  two  weeks  after  this,  one  of  my  friends  had 
business  in  town,  and  upon  arriving  he  learned  there  was 
a  company  formed  for  the  Confederate  army.  He  was 
so  nearly  beaten  to  death  by  some  of  said  company  that 
he  had  to  be  carried  home.  Shortly  after  this,  the  com- 
pany in  town  was  ordered  to  leave  and  rendezvous  at 
West  Point.  The  majority  of  them  concluded  it  would 
not  be  safe  to  leave  behind  them  myself  and  friends,  all 
of  whom  they  threatened  to  hang,  calling  us  d — d  aboli- 
tionists." This  method  of  converting  Union  men  to  seces- 
sionists was  not  special  in  Chickasaw  County  or  to  Mis- 
sissippi— it  was  general  all  over  the  South. 

"I  will  here  mention  that  at  this  time  no  citizen  could 
travel  a  short  distance  without  a  pass  from  the  president 
of  the  committee  of  his  district,  and  no  one  could  travel 
a  long  distance  without  a  pass  from  the  probate  clerk  of 
the  county,  with  the  county  seal  affixed  to  it,  and  no  man 
suspected  of  Union  sentiments  could  obtain  one."  The 
union  people  now  were  not  only  disarmed,  but  practically 
confined,  and  prevented  from  communication  with  the 
North. 


324  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

'The  threats  of  hanging  were  now  put  in  force ;  two 
of  my  best  friends,  more  innocent  than  myself,  were 
hanged,  but,  thank  God,  I  escaped.  This  naturally  created 
great  excitement,  and  some  of  the  most  resolute  Union 
men  expressed  their  opinion  that  now  was  the  time — they 
must  fight.  We  met  and  counseled  together,  but  our  con- 
dition was  such  that  it  was  not  deemed  advisable  to  com- 
mence fighting.  We  possessed  but  few  arms  and  a  scant 
supply  of  ammunition,  with  no  prospect  of  obtaining 
more  in  the  country,  and  no  means  of  communication  by 
telegraph  or  railroad  with  our  friends  abroad.  We  con- 
sidered our  case  desperate."  This  was  the  unfortunate 
condition  of  nearly  all  the  mountain  districts  of  the 
South.    Could  any  position  be  more  helpless  ? 

"People  were  wild  with  excitement  and  loudly  pro- 
claimed that  every  d — d  Tory  must  hang.  A  number  of 
my  nearest  friends,  who  at  one  time  flocked  together  be- 
neath my  banner,  afterwards  joined  the  Confederate 
army,  to  save  themselves  (they  say)  from  disgrace  or 
the  hemp."  Can  anyone  blame  them  when  you  consider 
that  these  men,  not  only  had  their  own  lives  at  stake,  but 
the  safety  of  their  wives,  their  children,  and  their  prop- 
erty? 

"I  lost  all  hope  of  raising  a  force,  or  maintaining  the 
Union  at  home.  In  the  meantime,  two  companies  had 
been  raised  for  the  Confederate  cause,  and  I  was  offered 
a  commission  which  would  place  me  in  command  of 
either  one.  I  rejected  the  offer,  telling  them  I  would  not, 
for  any  consideration,  aid  by  any  act  of  mine  the  bogus 
Confederacy.  Every  previous  confidence  was  lost,  and 
every   man   doubted   his   neighbor."      Chickasaw   was   a 


SOME  FINDINGS   OF  THREE  WARS  325 

Mexican  War  veteran ;  the  Confederates  wanted  his  serv- 
ices and  were  trying  to  buy  him ;  his  brother  was  a  Con- 
federate and  did  take  command  of  one  of  these  com- 
panies. 

"They  (the  rebels)  swore  that  I  could  not  reside  in 
the  country ;  that  I  must  die."  "A  few  weeks  after  this, 
on  returning  home  one  evening,  about  dusk,  and  while  in 
my  stable  lot,  putting  up  my  horse,  I  found  myself  sur- 
rounded by  a  body  of  armed  men,  who  ordered  me  to 
surrender.  I  recognized  among  them  a  few  members  of 
the  Vigilant  Committee.     They  at  once  ordered  me  to 

accompany  them  to  the  town  of  A ,   stating  that  I 

should  there  appear  before  the  Vigilant  Committee.  I 
asked  permision  to  go  to  the  house,  but,  no,  I  must  go 
with  them.  After  proceeding  about  a  half  mile  we  came 
to  a  halt,  when  one  of  them  remarked  that  'here  was  the 
place  and  there  was  the  tree,'  and  all  the  committee  that 
was  required  was  here.,,  "A  portion  of  them  rushed  at 
me  with  a  rope,  shouting,  with  loud  oaths,  Let  us  hang 
him !  Let  us  hang  him !  I  said,  'Stand  back,  gentlemen, 
I  want  to  speak.  I  have  taken  an  oath  to  support  the 
Union,  this  government,  which  every  man  has  to  do  that 
holds  either  civil  or  military  office,  and  he  who  violates 
it  is  guilty  of  perjury.  Now,  I  have  said  all  I  want  to 
say.    You  can  hang  me  or  let  me  go.' 

"This  speech  somewhat  cooled  their  anger,  and,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few,  they  desired  to  let  me  escape  this 
time,  but  reminded  me  I  was  not  safe  by  any  means — 
that  they  intended  to  kill  me."  This  was  after  he  had 
refused  to  take  command  of  one  of  the  Confederate 
companies. 


326  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

As  showing  how  the  Confederates  created  sentiment 
by  false  reports  and  false  statements,  note  the  following. 
He  was  at  one  time  asked,  "Now,  sir ;  suppose  the  North- 
ern army  should  come  down  here  and  commence  con- 
fiscating our  negroes  and  our  property,  killing  our  chil- 
dren, and  ravishing  our  wives,  would  you  fight  them?' 

"I  replied,  I  would,  most  certainly. 

"He  continued :  'Then  why  not  fight  them  now  ?  They 
have  commenced  it  already,  both  in  Baltimore  and  St. 
Louis.' 

"I  said,  'Gentlemen,  I  do  not  believe  it — we  have  no 
proof  of  it.'  ***  Matters  went  along  very  quietly  with 
me  for  a  few  weeks,  when  I  was  cautioned  by  a  few 
friends  to  be  on  my  guard — that  four  of  my  most  bitter 
enemies  were  riding  about,  carrying  their  guns,  watching 
for  an  opportunity  to  shoot  me."  "Thus  matters  stood 
when  I  concluded  to  leave  home."  He  did  leave  home  and 
succeeded  in  breaking  through  the  Confederate  line  and 
reached  our  army  in  time  to  tell  General  Sherman  what 
the  rebels  were  doing  just  before  the  battle  of  Pittsburgh 
Landing.  After  he  left  his  county,  his  property  was 
taken  and  destroyed ;  his  home  and  buildings  burned,  and 
his  wife  and  children  made  destitute  and  homeless.  More 
fortunate  than  most  such  families,  however,  they  reached 
our  lines  and  were  provided  for.  These  excerpts  merely 
hint  at  a  long,  dark,  bloody  tale  of  devotion  and  suffering 
by  Union  men  all  over  the  mountain  regions  of  the 
South,  that  never  has  been,  never  can  be,  and  perhaps  at 
this  late  date,  never  should  be,  told. 

The  Civil  War,  both  North  and  South,  was  carried 
through  by  the  enthusiasm,  devotion,  self  sacrifice,  and 


SOME  FINDINGS   OF  THREE  WARS  327 

real  or  mistaken  patriotism  of  the  majorities,  rather  than 
by  unanimity  of  action  on  either  side.  The  North  was 
no  more  united  than  the  South.  Lincoln  was  elected  by 
little  more  than  one-third  of  the  popular  vote  of  the  whole 
country  (37  per  cent)  and  fully  half  of  the  people  of  the 
North  were  not  even  in  sympathy  with  the  principles  of 
the  President  or  his  party. 

Had  not  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  upon  the  firing  upon 
Fort  Sumter,  taken  immediate  and  unqualified  stand 
with  Lincoln,  and  insisted  that  the  Union  men  should  be 
maintained,  it  never  would  have  survived.  Then  the 
Democratic  party  was  split  once  more  into  war,  or 
Douglas  Democrats,  who  loyally  supported  Lincoln,  and 
Peace  Democrats,  as  they  called  themselves,  or  ''Copper- 
heads," as  we  of  the  war  party  preferred  to  call  them. 

No  more  patriotic  or  determined  men  lived  than  the 
War  Democrats  of  the  North;  without  them  the  Union 
never  could  have  been  maintained.  Douglas,  by  throwing 
his  great  influence  unreservedly  on  the  side  of  the  Union, 
amply  atoned  for  any  wrongs  he  may  have  committed  by 
dallying  with  the  South  in  hopes  of  the  presidency  or 
presenting  and  pushing  to  enactment  the  Kansas-Nebras- 
ka Bill.  He,  then,  a  broken  hearted  man,  lay  down  and 
died,  but  his  influence  remained  with  us  during  the  whole 
conflict. 

Nor  was  opposition  to  the  vigorous  prosecution  of  the 
war  confined  to  those  who  voted  against  Lincoln.  Many 
who  had  been  his  most  ardent  supporters,  like  Horace 
Greeley,  with  the  tremendous  influence  of  his  New  York 
Tribune,  urged  that  if  any  of  the  Southern  states  wanted 
to   secede   we   should   "let   our  erring   sisters   depart   in 


328  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

peace."  These  men,  however,  after  hostilities  com- 
menced, supported  the  administration  unitedly. 

Throughout  the  conflict  for  the  Union,  the  West  was 
always  its  strong  supporter,  but,  knowing  the  inside  facts 
as  I  did,  I  yet  shudder  to  think  what  might,  and  but  for 
the  War  Democrats  would  have,  taken  place. 

As  the  southern  parts  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  and 
Iowa,  and  the  whole  of  Missouri,  had  been  very  largely 
settled  by  men  from  the  Carolinas,  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
and  Tennessee,  it  was  but  natural  they  should  be  more 
or  less  in  sympathy  with  their  native  states  on  all  ques- 
tions of  the  day.  There  were  many  places  in  all  these 
states  that  were  as  disloyal  as  South  Carolina,  and  where 
it  was  as  unsafe  for  one  to  express  Union  sentiments  as 
it  would  have  been  in  that  state.  I  know  this  personally, 
for  even  in  loyal  Iowa,  I,  as  a  veteran  United  States 
soldier,  wearing  my  blue  uniform,  and  being  on  furlough, 
rode  through  settelments  where  I  was  jeered  and  insulted, 
and  my  life  even  placed  in  jeopardy. 

In  Illinois,  in  a  town  near  Lincoln's  home,  sixteen 
Union  soldiers  who  were  home  on  furloughs  were 
attacked  by  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  in  open 
day  and  in  a  crowded  court  yard,  and  all  but  five  killed. 

In  Indiana,  these  Southern  sympathizers  so  controlled 
the  legislators  that  they  refused  to  vote  the  military  sup- 
plies the  Governor  requested,  and  even  in  Ohio,  after 
Valandingham  had  been  convicted  of  treason  and  sent  out 
of  the  Union  lines,  disloyalty  was  so  open  and  outspoken 
that,  though  the  traitor  was  in  an  alien  country  and  could 
not  set  his   foot  on  his  native  land,  they  dared  to  run 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  329 

him  for  governor  of  the  state.  To  the  undying  credit  of 
Ohio,  he  was  beaten  at  the  polls  by  a  hundred  thousand 
majority. 

These  opposers  of  the  war  were  confined  to  no  one 
status  in  life,  to  no  trade,  no  profession,  no  social  stand- 
ard. Even  after  the  seceded  states  had  withdrawn  their 
representatives,  the  legislative  halls  at  Washington  still 
contained  men  who  did  their  utmost  to  discredit  and 
oppose  the  administration.  "Fool  jester,"  "Bloody 
tyrant,"  "Gorilla  in  the  White  house,"  "Imbecile," 
"Despot,"  were  a  few  of  the  epithets  hurled  at  President 
Lincoln  both  in  and  out  of  the  halls  of  Congress. 

As  an  almost  universal  rule,  the  sympathizers  with 
the  South  were  Democrats,  mistaken  men  who  would 
listen  to  no  person  outside  of  their  own  party.  Therefore, 
such  men  as  Blair  of  Missouri,  Logan  and  McClernard 
of  Illinois,  Morton  of  Indiana,  and  thousands  of  Demo- 
crats like  them,  men  who,  disregarding  future  civil  pro- 
motion, and  many  times,  social  standing,  threw  party  and 
politics  to  the  wind  and  ranged  themselves  under  a  Re- 
publican president  to  help  preserve  the  Union.  To  these 
the  country  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  it  can  never  pay ;  I, 
as  one,  if  deemed  worthy,  wish  to  lay  my  humble  tribute 
at  their  feet. 

John  A.  Logan,  called  "Black  Jack"  by  his  people, 
who  adored  him,  was  an  example  of  the  men  I  mean.  He 
was  from  the  southern  part  of  Illinois,  in  the  country  we 
then  called  Egypt,  owing  to  its  backward  development. 
His  district  and  the  surrounding  country  seemed  certain 
to  side  with  the  seceding  states.  But  "Black  Jack"  feared 
neither   man   nor   devil,   and   breaking   allegiance   to   his 


330  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

party,  threw  himself  so  unreservedly  into  the  contest  that 
he  turned  the  tide,  and  no  state  has  a  better  war  record 
than  Illinois. 

I  never  met  Logan  during  the  service,  and  saw  him 
only  once.  This  was  upon  an  occasion  which  I  shall 
never  forget.  It  was  at  the  Republican  Convention  in 
Chicago,  where  Grant  was  first  nominated  for  president. 
Grant's  nomination  was  a  foregone  conclusion,  and  the 
convention  was  merely  expected  to  put  the  stamp  of  reg- 
ularity on  the  almost-universal  demand  of  the  Republican 
party.  Such  being  the  case,  ambitious  delegates  from  all 
over  the  nation  had  been  jumping  to  their  feet  at  all  kinds 
of  out-of-order  times,  and  calling,  "Mr.  Chairman,  I 
nominate  U.  S.  Grant  for  president,"  only  to  be  laughed 
down  by  the  convention. 

At  last,  the  Committee  on  Credentials  having  reported, 
and  the  time  for  nomination  having  actually  arrived,  men 
sprang  to  their  feet  from  all  over  the  hall,  demanding 
recognition.  Then  John  A.  Logan,  sitting  at  the  head  of 
the  Illinois  delegation,  arose  and  throwing  back  his  long, 
black  hair,  in  the  same  ringing  voice  that  rallied  the  re- 
tiring right  wing  of  our  army  at  Atlanta,  where  McPher- 
son  was  killed,  said,  "Mr.  Chairman,  I  rise  to  a  point  of 
order."  This  being  a  privileged  question  he  was  given 
the  floor.  Then  in  a  manner  that  only  Black  Jack  could 
command,  he  placed  Grant  in  nomination  for  president. 

The  scene  that  followed  is  the  one  that  remains  with 
me.  This  climax  had  been  expected  and  provided  for; 
pandemonium  broke  loose;  in  parquet,  balcony,  and  gal- 
leries, handkerchiefs,  hats,  flags  and  banners  were  waved, 
while    delegates,    visitors    and    reporters    shouted    them- 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  331 

selves  hoarse.  The  curtain  at  the  back  of  the  stage  was 
raised  and  there  was  displayed  a  cartoon  by  Nast  that 
rilled  the  whole  space;  while  red,  white,  and  blue  doves 
were  liberated,  to  fly  around  the  auditorium  as  emblems 
of  the  nominee's  never-dying  words,  "Let  us  have  Peace." 

Section  II. — The  Campaign  of  1861 

I  have  not  time,  space,  ability  nor  desire  to  write  a 
history  of  the  Civil  War,  its  battles,  its  generals,  or  its 
events.  Such  a  work  would  require  the  labor  of  a  life- 
time and  the  ability  of  a  superman.  The  chronological 
list  of  battles  as  compiled  by  the  government  contains  the 
names  of  over  twenty-two  hundred  engagements ;  and  the 
Pension  Bureau,  demanding  closer  and  more  particular 
information  and  noting  smaller  affairs,  is  said  to  have  an 
alphabetical  list  of  battles,  minor  conflicts,  and  skirmishes 
deemed  worthy  of  note,  reaching  the  incredible  number  of 
over  six  thousand  eight  hundred  separate  events.  What 
an  immense  library  these  completed  stories  would  make! 

What  I  shall  try  to  do  will  be  to  present  an  epitome 
of  the  strategy  of  the  war  as  I  understand  it,  and  en- 
deavor to  illustrate  it  by  an  outline  map.  This  appeal 
to  the  eye  will  note  the  deciding  battles  of  each  season's 
campaign,  and  also  thereon  will  be  marked  the  Con- 
federate defensive  lines  of  battle  at  the  commencement  of 
the  war,  July,  1861,  and  the  close  of  each  year's  cam- 
paign. My  text  I  have  tried  to  make  brief  but  sufficiently 
explicit  so  that  any  one  may  understand  what  the  ob- 
jectives of  each  year's  campaign  were,  and  decide  how 
much  or  how  little  of  each  yearly  purpose  was  accom- 
plished. 


332  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME  • 

This  method  has  triple  advantage :  First,  it  will  present 
the  history  of  that  war  to  the  eye  more  than  to  the  ear. 
Second,  I  hope  in  this  way  to  give  a  more  satisfactory 
and  comprehensive  view  of  the  great  events  there  shown. 
Third,  it  will  allow  me  to  tell  more  easily  the  personal 
story  of  my  regiment,  and  where  and  how  it  tried  to  do 
its  little  part  in  the  war  for  the  Union.  Mine  was  a 
cavalry  regiment.  Should  I  linger  in  relating  its  history 
it  will  be  because  this  part  of  the  army  has  now  been 
superseded  by  the  aeroplane  and  motor,  and  I  wish  here 
to  record  some  memories  of  the  organization,  life,  and 
exploits  of  this  gallant  and  dashing  by-gone  service. 

To  facilitate  the  text  and  the  map  in  their  joint  ex- 
planation of  the  various  movements,  I  have  placed  num- 
bers in  each  that  refer  the  one  to  the  other.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  draw  these  strategic  lines  to  any  scale  or  with  any 
certainty,  because  they  were  constantly  wavering  during 
each  season  and  there  would  have  been  differences  of 
opinion  between  the  contestants  as  to  exactly  where  these 
lines  lay  at  any  one  time,  but  I  am  certain  they  are 
sufficiently  near  their  proper  places  to  convey  to  the 
reader  the  correct  information  regarding  the  yearly  ob- 
jectives won  or  lost. 

The  Confederate  battle  line  as  first  formed  early  in 
1861  commenced  in  the  East,  near  Washington,  at 
Manassas  or  Bull  Run  (2)  where  General  Beauregard 
commanded,  and  reached  west  into  the  Shenandoah  Val- 
ley to  Winchester  (3),  where  General  Johnston's  force 
was  stationed.  It  then  crossed  the  mountains  into  West 
Virginia  at  Philippi  (4),  where  Colonel  Porterfield  with 
Virginia  Volunteers  was  located,  then  by  the  way  of  Rich 


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SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  333 

Mountain  (5),  and  Scary  Creek  (6),  in  the  Kanawha 
Valley,  it  was  thrown  toward  the  Kentucky  line  in  the 
direction  of  Prestonburg  (n). 

Kentucky  tried  to  remain  neutral,  and  forbade  both 
Northern  and  Southern  armies  to  invade  her  soil.  This 
prohibition  was  maintained  until  September  when  Con- 
federate General  Polk  advanced  a  force  and  took  pos- 
session of  Columbus,  Kentucky  (8).  A  few  days  later, 
General  Zollicofler  advanced  from  Columbus  Gap  to 
Cumberland  Ford  (10),  General  Buckner  on  the  15th 
occupied  Bowling  Green  (9),  and  in  the  same  month 
Colonel  Williams  threw  a  Confederate  force  into  east 
Kentucky  near  Prestonburg  (11). 

Thus  was  the  neutrality  of  Kentucky  broken  by  the 
Confederates.  The  different  movements  made  so  nearly 
at  the  same  time  and  their  several  objectives  forming  so 
complete  a  line,  demonstrated  that  the  orders  to  invade 
the  state  had  originated  at  one  and  a  supreme  source. 
That  source  could  have  been  only  Richmond. 

In  Missouri  Governor  Jackson,  an  ardent  secessionist, 
at  first  pretty  well  controlled  things  through  the  state 
militia  on  the  west  side  of  the  Missouri  River.  His  princi- 
pal hostile  movement  was  to  gather  his  forces  at  Camp 
Jackson  (13),  near  St.  Louis  (12),  with  the  view  of  tak- 
ing possession  for  the  Confederate  States  of  the  arms, 
ammunition,  and  supplies  of  the  United  States  in  the 
arsenal  of  that  city. 

Thus  was  the  Confederate  line  drawn  and  the  prob- 
lem for  the  North  to  solve  was,  "Shall  our  erring  sisters 
be  allowed  to  depart  in  peace,  or  shall  that  line  be  brok- 
en?"    The  answer  was,  "Break  the  line!" 


334  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

This  was  first  done  at  Philippi  (4),  on  the  6th  day  of 
May,  by  Colonels  Kelly  and  Morris  with  some  West 
Virginia  and  Ohio  troops.  The  Confederates  retreated  so 
promptly  and  so  hastily,  and  the  Union  troops  chased 
them  so  closely  and  rapidly  that  the  engagement  became 
locally  known  as  the  "Philippi  Races." 

About  a  week  later  came  the  Confederate  defeat  at 
Rich  Mountain  (5),  and  in  July  General  Cox  met  a  force 
under  General  Wise,  ex-governor  of  Virginia,  at  Scary 
Creek  and  Tyler  Mountains  in  the  Kanawha  Valley  (6), 
and  drove  them  into  the  southeastern  part  of  the  state. 

The  Confederate  government  was  anxious  to  save 
West  Virginia  to  itself,  and  felt  the  importance  so  greatly 
it  sent  its  best  general,  Lee,  into  the  Kanawha  Valley  in 
October  to  endeavor  to  reconquer  it;  but  he,  with  his 
subordinates,  Generals  Wise  and  Floyd,  were  so  badly 
defeated  at  Gurley  Bridge  and  Carnafex  Ferry  (7)  by 
the  Union  forces  under  General  Rosecrans  that  they  were 
driven  through  the  Alleghanies,  which  mountains  from 
this  time  on,  remained  the  frontier  of  the  Confederacy 
in  Virginia. 

This  West  Virginia  campaign,  even  though  the  en- 
gagements and  the  numbers  of  men  employed  were  com- 
paratively small,  was  important:  First,  because  it  sep- 
arated that  state  from  Virginia  and  saved  it  for  the 
Union.  Second,  because  General  McClellan  had  com- 
manded the  early  part  of  it,  and  had  made  it  so  prominent 
by  Napoleonic  dispatches  to  the  government  and  the 
people,  that  it  was  probably  the  deciding  factor  in  mak- 
ing him  subsequently  the  commander  of  all  the  Union 
forces. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  335 

East  of  the  mountains,  the  North  met  a  severe  re- 
verse, General  McDowell  attempted  to  make  another 
break  in  the  Confederate  line  at  Bull  Run  (2),  on  the  21st 
day  of  July,  1861,  and  failed,  as  I  have  heretofore  told. 

Then  General  George  B.  McClellan,  with  the  prestige 
of  his  West  Virginia  campaign,  was  brought  from  that 
state  and  given  command.  Even  though  he  organized  a 
magnificent  army,  fully  equipped  and  amply  provided, 
for  some  unaccountable  reason,  he  did  nothing  with  it  to 
retrieve  the  disaster  of  Bull  Run,  but  permitted  it  to 
remain  idle  the  whole  year.  Thus,  the  battle  line  east  of 
the  mountains  remained  practically  the  same  at  the  close 
of  the  year  as  when  it  was  first  established. 

In  Kentucky,  General  Nelson  with  Ohio  and  Ken- 
tucky troops  broke  the  Confederate  line  at  Prestonburg 
(11)  and  drove  Colonel  Williams  into  Virginia  through 
Pound  Gap  of  the  Cumberland  Mountains  (17)  ;  and,  as 
part  of  the  1861  campaign,  a  few  days  after  the  first  of 
January,  1862,  General  Thomas  engaged  Generals  Zolli- 
coffer  and  Crittenden  at  Mill  Springs  near  Cumberland 
Ford  (10),  killed  Zollicoffer  and  drove  Crittenden  and 
his  men  through  Cumberland  Gap  (18)  and  out  of  the 
state.  Eastern  Kentucky  was  thus  cleared  of  Confederate 
forces,  but  in  the  west  they  still  retained  the  line  from 
Bowling  Green  (9)  to  Columbus  (8). 

In  Missouri,  General  Lyon  broke  up  Camp  Jackson 
(13)  on  the  10th  of  May,  followed  the  retreating  Gover- 
nor Jackson  and  state  troops  to  Jefferson  City  (14)  on 
the  14th,  and  to  Boonville  (15)  on  the  17th,  where  he 
dispersed  the  Missouri  State  Militia  there  gathered  and 
drove  Governor  Jackson,  General  Price,  and  their  sup- 


336  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

porters  to  the  southwestern  part  of  the  state.  There  the 
Confederates  were  reinforced  and  the  desperate  battle 
of  Wilson's  Creek  near  Springfield  (19),  was  fought 
August  10th.  Here  although,  according  to  Confederate 
admission,  the  Union  troops  were  outnumbered  two  to 
one,  and  although  General  Lyon  was  killed,  the  battle 
was  practically  a  drawn  one,  and  the  Confederates  did 
not  care  to  follow  our  withdrawal. 

If  the  map  be  now  examined,  the  findings  of  the 
1861  campaign  will  be  shown  as  follows :  East  of  the 
mountains  the  Confederate  line  was  unbroken  and  re- 
mained as  first  formed.  West  of  the  mountains,  in  West 
Virginia  and  in  eastern  Kentucky,  the  line  was  broken 
and  the  Confederates  were  driven  across  the  Alleghanies 
and  out  of  those  states;  in  western  Kentucky,  from 
Bowling  Green  (9)  to  Columbus  (8)  the  line  remained 
as  formed;  in  Missouri  it  was  forced  back  from  the 
Missouri  River  into  the  southern  and  southwestern  part 
of  that  state. 

Meanwhile,  the  navy,  with  the  assistance  of  the  army, 
retained,  or  achieved  by  force,  valuable  lodgement  at 
Fortress  Monroe,  Cape  Hatteras,  Palmico  and  Nassau 
Sounds,  and  Port  Royal. 

During  this  entire  year  the  Second  Iowa  Cavalry,  my 
regiment,  had  been  learning  to  kill  live  rebels  by  flourish- 
ing wood  sabres.  We  had  worked  hard  introducing  wild, 
unbroken  horses  that  never  had  felt  saddle  or  bridle,  to 
raw  men  who  hardly  knew  upon  which  part  of  their 
mounts  these  articles  belonged.  We  had  worked  diligently 
trying  to  distinguish  instantly  which  was  our  right  and 
which  our  left  flank,  and  earnestly  endeavoring  to  make 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  337 

our  left  foot  reach  the  ground  in  somewhere  near  the 
proper  cadence  and  correct  position.  When,  at  last  in 
the  late  fall,  the  boys  learned  to  form  a  fairly  decent 
line  on  foot,  and  could  move  it  carefully  without  its 
formation  becoming  too  winding  or  ragged,  and  when 
they  had  also  succeeded  in  being  able  to  ride  their  horses 
faster  than  a  walk  without  too  many  falling  off,  we 
were  given  navy  revolvers  and  sabres. 

Then  we  thought  we  were  fierce  warriors  ready  for 
the  field  and  to  be  feared  in  fight.  We  did  not  realize  in 
our  innocence  that  a  steady  regiment  of  infantry  could 
completely  annihilate  us  if  we  were  so  incautious  as  to 
get  within  range  of  their  guns.  Later  in  the  war  when 
we  had  received  our  carbines  and  learned  to  listen  for, 
and  promptly  obey,  the  order,  "Dismount  to  fight,"  we 
became  an  important  element  in  the  Union  army  and  an 
organization  for  the  "Johnnies"  to  consider  seriously. 

We  were  in  Camp  Joe  Holt  in  Davenport,  Iowa,  until 
December  7th,  1861,  when  we  sailed  down  the  Mississippi 
to  Benton  Barracks  in  St.  Louis.  Here  we  met  the 
greatest,  most  unconquered  enemy  of  the  Civil  War 
veteran — death  by  disease,  an  enemy  that  during  that 
conflict  claimed  and  took  nearly  twice  as  many  men  as 
all  other  causes  combined.  We  were  in  these  ill-con- 
structed barracks  but.  sixty  days  when  we  had  lost  by 
death  over  five  per  cent  of  our  men,  and  the  others  were 
so  weakened  that  some  of  the  strongest  companies  some- 
times appeared  on  dress  parade  with  only  ten  of  their 
hundred  men  in  line.  Fortunately,  we  escaped  from  that 
camp  on  the  17th  of  February.  Again  we  embarked  on 
steamers  and  landed  at  Bird's  Point,  opposite  Cairo, 
Illinois,  ready  to  take  part  in  the  campaign  of  1862. 


338  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

RECAPITULATION  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1861 

(See  map,  pages  332-333) 
Objectives 

(Seemed  never  to  have  been  fully  formulated,  but 
were  left  to  the  development  of  circumstances.) 

East  of  the  mountains : 

The  popular  cry  was,  "On  to  Richmond !" 

West  of  the  mountains: 

The    Donnybrook   Fair   strategy    seemed    to   obtain : 

When  a  head  was  shown,  "Hit  it." 
Decisive  Battles 

East  of  the  mountains : 

Bull  Run,  or  Manassas. 

West  of  the  mountains : 

Philippi,  Rich  Mountain,  Curley  Bridge  and  Carnafax 
Ferry,  Mill  Springs,  Booneville,  Springfield. 
Findings 

East  of  the  mountains : 

"On  to  Richmond"  failed  and  the  Confederate  battle 
line  remained  unchanged. 

West  of  the  mountains: 

In  West  Virginia  and  southeastern  Kentucky  the 
battle  line  was  driven  out  of  these  states  and  across  the 
mountains. 

In  Missouri  it  was  pushed  from  the  Missouri  River 
into  the  southern  part  of  the  state. 


SOME  FINDINGS   OF  THREE  WARS  339 

Section  III.   The  Campaign  of  1862 

The  desired  objectives  of  the  Federal  Generals  for 
the  campaign  of  1862  were  as  follows : 

First,  in  the  East,  Richmond,  the  capitol  of  the  Con- 
federacy, was  to  be  captured. 

Second,  in  the  West,  the  Confederates  were  to  be 
driven  out  of  Missouri  and  as  much  farther  south  as  pos- 
sible. 

Third,  our  forces  were  to  be  pushed  into  east  Ten- 
nessee in  order  to  relieve  and  liberate  the  many  Union 
sympathizers  living  there.  This  was  President  Lincoln's 
pet  movement,  and  he  and  McClellan  insisted  upon  it 
above  all  others. 

Fourth,  the  people  urged  that  the  Mississippi  River  be 
opened  for  commerce. 

The  first  movement  in  1862  was  in  the  extreme  west. 
The  Federal  General  S.  R.  Curtis,  advanced  to  attack 
General  Price  and  the  Confederate  force,  which  had 
wintered  in  and  near  Springfield  (19),  Missouri.  Curtis 
(drove  Price's  command  from  his  camp  and  out  of  the 
state  into  Arkansas,  where  he  was  joined  by  Generals 
McCulloch,  Mcintosh,  and  Pike.  On  March  3rd,  General 
Earl  Van  Dorn  took  command  of  the  combined  Confed- 
erate force  and  prepared  to  give  battle  to  the  Federals 
who  had  followed  Price  into  Arkansas. 

General  Curtis,  the  Union  commander,  was  outnum- 
bered— 16,000  to  11,000 — and  so  he  retired  to  Pea  Ridge 
(22),  an  out-thrown  spur  of  the  Ozark  Mountains,  and 
there  awaited  Van  Dorn's  attack.     The  conflict  came  on 


340  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

March  3rd,  and  in  a  two  day's  fierce  battle  the  Confed- 
erates were  so  thoroughly  defeated  that  objective  No.  2 
was  decisively  gained. 

Regarding  the  third  objective:  look  at  the  map,  note 
the  two  rivers  that  flow  into  the  Ohio  at  the  south  end 
of  Illinois;  the  northern  (25)  is  the  Cumberland,  and 
the  southern  (26)  the  Tennessee.  These  rivers  are 
navigable  a  long  distance  up,  and  command  and  use  of 
them  were  of  great  importance  to  either  Federals  or 
Confederates.  Until  now  the  latter  had  controlled  them 
completely,  and  to  prevent  the  Union  from  acquiring 
their  use  they  built,  during  the  winter  of  1861-1862, 
Fort  Henry  (23)  on  the  Tennessee,  and  Fort  Donelson 
(24)   on  the  Cumberland. 

The  Confederate  defense  still  remained  upon  the 
Columbus-Bowling  Green  line  (8-9).  Even  a  non-  mili- 
tary man  could  see  that  a  Union  force  could  not  carry  out 
President  Lincoln's  pet  scheme  and  push  troops  down 
into  east  Tennessee  until  this  line  (8-9)  was  broken.  The 
Federal  generals  concluded  that  the  best  way  to  break 
that  line  would  be  to  send  our  newly  built  iron-clad  fleet 
with  an  ample  land  force  up  the  Tennessee  River  and 
capture  the  two  forts  there  built. 

On  the  5th  of  February  the  fleet  under  Commodore 
Foote  and  a  land  force  under  General  Grant,  arrived  at 
Fort  Henry  (23),  with  the  intention  of  capturing  it.  This 
object  they  achieved.  On  the  6th,  the  garrison  retreated 
to  Fort  Donelson  (24).  General  Grant  followed  the 
Confederates  to  the  latter  fort,  which  he  pressed  so 
energetically  and  successfully  that  on  the  16th,  General 
Buckner,    the    Confederate   general    there    commanding, 


SOME   FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  341 

hung  out  flags  of  truce  and  asked  terms  of  surrender. 
This  brought  from  Grant  a  reply  the  effective  part  of 
which  was,  "No  terms  but  an  unconditional  and  imme- 
diate surrender  can  be  accepted.  I  propose  to  move  im- 
mediately on  your  works."  The  surrender  was  "imme- 
diately" made,  together  with  about  fifteen  thousand 
prisoners  and  their  entire  equipment. 

This  severe  blow  to  the  Confederates  broke  their  line 
so  effectively  they  evacuated  Columbus  (8),  Bowling 
Green  (9),  and  middle  Tennessee,  and  formed  a  new  line 
of  defense  from  Memphis  (27)  to  Chattanooga  (29) 
along  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  line  of  railroad  that 
ran  near  the  south  line  of  Tennessee  and  connected  the 
two  cities.  Thus  the  retirement  of  the  Confederate  line 
made  objective  number  three  possible  of  accomplishment. 

After  the  capture  of  Donelson,  and  Grant's  famous 
dispatch,  the  significance  of  the  initials  of  his  name,  U. 
S.  was  popularly  changed  from  Ulysses  Simpson  to 
"Unconditional  Surrender,"  and  thereafter  he  was  affec- 
tionately known  in  the  North  as  Unconditional  Surrender 
Grant. 

The  fourth  objective  of  the  campaign,  the  opening  of 
the  Mississippi,  was  intrusted  to  Major  General  John 
Tope,  who  on  the  21st  of  February  assembled  his  troops 
and  gunboats  at  Commerce  (31),  for  an  expedition  by 
land  and  river  to  New  Madrid  (30),  which  would  place 
him  below  the  forts  and  obstructions  which  the  Confed- 
erates had  built  in  the  Mississippi  River  at  Island  No.  10 
(32).    To  this  expedition  my  regiment  was  attached. 

General  Pope  with  his  forces  reached  New  Madrid 
March  13th,  drove  the  enemy  out  and  captured  the  fort 


342  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

with  twenty  heavy  guns,  thousands  of  small  arms,  large 
stores  of  ammunition  and  supplies,  and,  above  all,  secured 
a  strong  position  south  of,  and  down  the  river  from,  the 
enemy's  forts  and  forces  at  Island  No.  10  (32). 

By  April  4th  gunboats  had  run  the  batteries  at  Island 
No.  10,  and  transports  had  been  floated  through  a  channel 
cut  across  a  bend  in  the  river.  Then  General  Pope, 
having  consolidated  his  forces  on  Point  Pleasant  below 
New  Madrid,  and  his  gunboats  having  silenced  the  Con- 
federate batteries  on  the  opposite  shore,  crossed  the  river 
and  captured  the  Island,  together  with  seven  thousand 
prisoners,  one  hundred  and  fifty-eight  cannon,  seven 
thousand  stands  of  small  arms,  and  an  immense  amount 
of  stores  of  all  kinds.  After  this  victory  Pope  proceeded 
down  the  Mississippi  River  to  Fort  Pillow,  just  above 
Memphis  (27),  and  commenced  to  bombard  it;  but  before 
he  had  time  to  complete  its  reduction  he  was  ordered  to 
bring  his  army  to  Pittsburg  Landing  (28),  on  the  Tennes- 
see River. 

Meanwhile  an  equally  successful  movement  toward 
attaining  objective  No.  4,  was  in  progress  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi.  Commodore  Farragut  entered  the 
river  accompanied  by  General  Butler's  land  forces,  April 
18th;  he  bombarded  Forts  St.  Philip  and  Jackson  (33). 
On  the  24th,  the  navy  ran  past  them  and  destroyed  the 
Confederate  fleet.  The  next  day  it  reached  New  Orleans 
(35),  and  took  possession  thereof.  Then  the  fleet  moved 
up  the  river,  occupied  Baton  Rouge  (36)  on  the  9th  of 
May,  Natchez  on  the  12th,  and  was  not  stopped  till 
Vicksburg  was  reached  on  the  18th  (38). 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  343 

At  that  time  the  up-river  and  the  ocean  fleets  might 
have  met  and  shaken  hands  but  for  the  Confederate  bat- 
teries at  Vicksburg.  For  a  while  these  fleets  commanded 
the  whole  river  except  in  front  of  the  batteries  of  that 
city  and  nearly  secured  objective  No.  4.  Later,  to  prevent 
the  entire  separation  between  the  sections  of  the  South 
situated  on  the  two  sides  of  the  river,  the  Confederates 
constructed  a  strong  fort  at  Port  Hudson  (37),  135 
miles  above  New  Orleans,  and  thereby  regained  control 
of  the  river  between  the  fort  so  located  and  Vicksburg. 

At  the  very  time  when  Pope  was  making  his  success- 
ful capture  of  Island  No.  10,  General  Grant  at  Pitts- 
burg Landing  (28),  about  twenty  miles  above  Corinth, 
Mississippi  (39),  was  there  fighting  for  the  salvation  of 
his  army.  He  had  gone  from  Fort  Henry  up  the  Ten- 
nessee River  to  the  landing  mentioned,  for  the  purpose 
of  breaking  the  Confederates'  second  line  of  defense  on 
the  Memphis  and  Charleston  railroad  at  Corinth  (39), 
where  the  Southern  army  had  gathered  to  meet  him. 

At  daybreak  on  the  morning  of  April  6th,  General 
Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  commanding  the  Confederate 
troops  from  Corinth  (39),  assaulted  General  Grant's 
lines  with  the  intention  of  surprising  him  and  capturing 
his  army  before  his  reinforcements  under  General  Buell 
could  reach  him.  Perhaps  no  battle  of  the  war  has  been 
so  discussed,  so  falsified,  and  so  eulogized  as  this,  but 
two  controlling  facts  now  seem  certain.  Johnston  did 
succeed  in  surprising  Grant  and  driving  his  troops  back 
to  the  support  of  the  gunboats  on  the  Tennessee,  but  al- 
though he  lost  his  life,  he  did  not  capture  the  Federal 
forces  or  even  break  their  lines. 


344  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

What  would  have  happened  the  next  day  had  Buell 
and  his  forces  not  arrived  during  the  night  is  open  to 
conjecture.  General  Grant  said  that  with  his  own  forces, 
which  now  were  all  on  the  ground,  he  could  have  taken 
the  offensive  the  next  morning  and  driven  the  enemy 
from  the  field.  The  Confederates  said,  that  had  Buell  not 
arrived  they  could  and  would  have  destroyed  Grant's 
army. 

What  might  have  been  is  uncertain,  but  Buell  did 
come,  did  cross  the  river  during  the  night,  and  the  next 
day,  April  7th,  General  Grant  did  drive  the  Confederates, 
now  under  Beauregard,  from  the  field  and  back  toward 
Corinth.  There  they  reorganized,  reinforced  their  army, 
fortified  the  town,  and  prepared  to  hold  it  to  the  last. 

The  situation  was  now  so  critical  that  General  Halleck 
came  and  personally  took  command  of  all  the  troops. 
This  left  General  Grant  to  the  uncertain  and  unsatisfac- 
tory position  of  second  in  command.  He  found  the 
situation  so  annoying  that  he  would  have  resigned  his 
commission  and  left  the  army  had  not  General  Sherman 
induced  him  to  reconsider  his- determination. 

General  Halleck  now  marched  by  cautious  steps  to- 
ward Corinth,  intrenching  his  army  as  it  slowly  advanced. 
He  recalled  General  Pope  from  Fort  Pillow,  and  utilized 
his  army  as  the  left  wing  of  his  grand  command ;  he 
constituted  Buell  as  his  right  wing,  and  made  Grant's  old 
army  the  center,  with  General  Thomas  in  command. 

He  did  not  commence  his  march  until  May  1st,  and 
it  was  the  30th  before  he  reached  Corinth  (39),  about 
twenty  miles  away,  and  found  it  evacuated.  The  Con- 
federates had  left  and  their  second  line   for   1862  was 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  345 

broken,  and  the  evacuation  of  Fort  Pillow  followed  on 
June  4th.  This  permitted  the  gunboats  under  Commo- 
dore Foote  to  reach  Memphis  (27)  six  days  later,  to 
wipe  out  the  Confederates'  fleet  and  take  possession  of 
that  city,  thereby  smashing  the  Confederates'  second  line 
a  second  time. 

The  enemy  fell  back  once  more  to  a  third,  uncertain 
and  disputable,  line  from  Vick^burg  (38),  on  the  Mis- 
sissippi river,  to  Chattanooga  (29),  in  the  mountains  of 
Tennessee. 

After  the  Confederates'  successes  east  of  the  moun- 
tains they  tried  to  force  this  line  back  again  to  the  north. 
General  Price  at  Iuka,  twenty-five  miles  east  of  Corinth 
(39),  General  Van  Dorn  at  Corinth,  General  Bragg  at 
Plymouth,  Kentucky  (57),  and  Murfreesboro,  Tennes- 
see (41),  all  ultimately  failed;  and  the  Vicksburg  (38), 
Chattanooga  (29),  line  still  remained  as  the  Confederate 
defense  at  the  end  of  the  campaign  of  1862. 

Had  the  success  that  met  our  arms  in  the  West  been 
duplicated  in  the  East — as  it  seems  it  might  have  been 
after  the  battles  of  Seven  Pines  and  Fair  Oaks,  when 
Confederate  General  Johnston  was  wounded  and  his  dis- 
organized army  driven  into  Richmond — the  war  would 
have  ended  in  the  campaign  of  1862.      But 

"There's  a  destiny  that  shapes  our  ends 
Rough-hew  them  as  we  will," 

and  it  is  almost  certain  that  it  is  fortunate  for  the 
country  that  peace  was  not  made  at  that  time.  Then, 
neither  North  nor  South  was  ready  for  emancipation. 
The  only  issue  that  had  then  been  joined  was  Union  or 
Disunion,    consequently    that   was    the   only   one    which 


346  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

would  have  been  settled.  If  Lincoln  was  right  when  he 
said,  "This  nation  cannot  exist  half  slave  and  half  free," 
the  question  of  slavery  would  have  been  left  to  be  fought 
out  at  some  later  time. 

The  campaign  in  the  East  was  not  so  successful  as  in 
the  West.  In  May,  General  McClellan  with  his  army  was 
moved  via  Fortress  Monroe  (42),  and  proceeded  up  the 
York  River  Peninsula  (43),  and  along  the  bank  of  the 
Chickahominy  River  (44)  to  attempt  the  capture  of 
Richmond  (21). 

Of  the  heroic  devotion  and  brave  fighting  there 
shown  by  the  Union  Army,  many  writers  have  told.  Of 
the  many  bloody  battles  there  fought  between  May  31, 
and  July  1 — Seven  Pines,  Fair  Oaks,  Mechanicsville, 
Gains'  Mills,  Peach  Orchard,  Savage  Station,  Glendale, 
Frazer's  Farm,  and  Malvern  Hill — history  rightfully 
relates. 

General  Pope's  disastrous  defeat  at  Cedar  Mountain 
(45),  Groveton  (46),  and  Manassas  (2),  are,  to  our 
shame,  all  on  record.  General  Lee's  attempt  to  invade 
the  North  and  his  defeat  at  Sharpsburg  or  Antietam  (48), 
historians  without  number  have  told,  and  the  country  still 
mourns  for  its  sons  lost  in  the  last  movement  of  the 
1862  campaign  in  the  East — Fredricksburg   (49). 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  repeat  this  much  told  history 
more  than  to  show  the  final  outcome.  The  only  conclu- 
sion and  finding  of  all  this  conflict  was  that  the  battle 
line  east  of  the  mountains  had  been  driven  a  little  nearer 
Richmond ;  on  the  sea-coast  of  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  and  about  Pamlico  Sound  the  Federals  had 
established  greater  control. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  347 

West  of  the  mountains  the  Confederate's  line  of  de- 
fense had  been  twice  broken  and  driven  from  the 
Columbus-Bowling  Green-Prestonburg  line  (8-9-10-11), 
to  a  dubious  one  reaching  from  Vicksburg,  Mississippi,  to 
Chattanooga,  Tennessee,  and  west  of  the  Mississippi  as 
far  down  as  Little  Rock,  Arkansas  (61). 

The  work  of  my  regiment,  whether  or  not  it  was 
heroic  and  decisive  of  results,  was  most  certainly  active. 
It  chased  Jeff  Thompson's  Cavalry  in  southeastern  Mis- 
souri until  it  was  disbanded.  It  waded  through  the  Mis- 
souri swamps  in  Pope's  Island  No.  10  campaign  where 
the  water  for  miles  reached  the  sides  of  the  horses,  and 
at  the  capture  of  that  place  it  was  first  in  possession  of 
the  forts  on  the  island,  and  was  so  awarded  the  honor 
by  proper  authority.  At  one  time  while  chasing  Jeff 
Thompson's  cavalry,  the  printers  of  my  company  took 
charge  of  the  deserted  office  of  the  Charleston  Courier,  a 
rabid  rebel  paper,  and  issued  at  least  one  number  of  that 
publication  that  was  soundly  patriotic. 

With  General  Pope's  army  we  reached  Pittsburg 
Landing  after  the  great  battle,  and  advanced  with  Hal- 
leck's  command  to  the  siege  and  capture  of  Corinth  (39). 
While  not  one  man  in  ten  of  the  infantry  of  the  command 
heard  a  bullet  whistle  or  had  a  chance  to  fire  a  shot  at 
the  enemy  in  that  movement,  my  regiment  had  no  less 
than  five  distinct  encounters  with  them.  In  one  of  these 
conflicts,  according  to  official  report,  we  charged,  as  a 
forlorn  hope,  a  battery  of  twenty-four  guns  which  was 
supported  by  fifteen  thousand  infantry,  and  by  this  seem- 
ingly futile  charge  saved  General  Paine's  division  from 
capture. 


348  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Long  after  the  war  I  was  detailed  to  write  a  descrip- 
tion of  this  charge  for  one  of  my  regimental  reunions. 
As  it  was  well  received  at  that  time  and  at  other  gather- 
ings of  veterans,  and  because,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  it  is 
the  only  description  of  a  cavalry  charge  written  by  one 
who  personally  participated,  I  dare  insert  it  here.  Our 
success  was  not  because  we  killed  so  many  of  the  enemy, 
for  their  loss  was  few ;  but  because  the  dash  was  so  bold 
they  thought  it  was  the  signal  for  a  general  advance  of  a 
large  force,  and  while  they  stopped  to  place  themselves 
on  the  defensive,  General  Paine  and  his  men  escaped. 

For  verification  of  my  story  see  Byer's  History  of 
Iowa  in  war  time,  page  576;  also  Government  official  re- 
ports on  the  war,  Series  I,  Vol  X,  Part  1,  pages  729  and 
7&. 


THE  CHARGE  AT  FARMINGTON 

The  Army 

'Midst  opening  groves  of  greenest  hue, 

On  rolling  landscape  fair  to  view, 
Where  white-walled  tents  in  long  lines  stand, 

And  batteries  planted  on  each  hand, 
And  neighing  horse  at  picket  rope, 

And  stacks  of  arms  on  every  slope, 
And  banners  flying  in  the  air, 

And  lines  of  guards  drawn  everywhere, 
And  bands  at  play,  and  bugle  bray, 

Halleck  at  siege  of  Corinth  lay. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  349 

The   Regiment 

The  clay  was  fair;  the  southland  breeze 

Was  whispering  softly  through  the  trees. 

Our  regiment,  as  soldiers  will, 

Was  killing  time  with  dext'rous  skill ; 

Some  read  the  news;   some  letters  write; 

Some  tell  the  tale  of  recent  fight ; 

Some  in  seclusion  of  their  tent 

Strive  to  repair  some  garment  rent, 

And  as  their  only  suit  they  mend 

The  sight  would   fright  their  dearest   friend ; 

Some  Juba  pat ;  and  some  sans  care 

Are  blanket-tossed  into  the  air; 

Some  sing  the  lay  of  "John  Brown's"  day; 

While  some  at  cards  stake  their  last  pay. 

The  Alarm 

But  hark!     With  sudden  crash  and  roar, 
Headquarters'  guns  the  signals  pour, 
That  General  Paine,  who  last  night  lay 
Detached,  exposed,  is  brought  to  bay 
And  must  have  help  at  any  cost, 
Or  all  his  men  and  guns  are  lost. 
All  things  are  dashed  from  hasty  hands, 
And  every  man  expectant  stands, 
Till  "drum  beat"  pours  its  stern  alarms 
And  bugles  blow  the  call,  "To  arms !" 
Now  all  is  hurry,  rush,  and  din. 
First  sergeants  shout,  "Fall  in!  Fall  in!" 
While  soldiers  rushing  to  and  fro 
For  pistol,  sword,  and  carbine  go, 
And  then  "Assembly!"  fills  the  air, 
And  ranks  are  formed  in  hurry  there, 
While  sergeants  dress  our  lines  and  call 
The  roll  of  names,  now  dear  to  all, 
For  many  answering  "Here !"  that  time 
Are  sleeping  now  in  southern  clime. 
And  then  we  wait  and  wait,  and  wait, 
For  what  may  be  our  coming  fate. 


350  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


The  Advance 

See !   dashing-  couriers  orders  bring, 

And  "Boots  and  Saddles  IV  bugles  ring. 

The  boys  break  ranks  and  bridles  grasp, 

And  blankets  fold  and  saddles  clasp, 

And  all  are  with  the  utmost  speed 

Swift-buckled  on  each  snorting  steed. 

Then  loud,  "To  Horse !"  the  bugles  flout, 

And  sergeants  call,  "Lead  out !  Lead  out !" 

Then  horse  and  man  with  bit  in  hand 

Close  side  by  side  in  long  line  stand. 

"Prepare  to  mount !"  the  order  fleets, 

Then,  "Mount!"  The  troopers  take  their  seats 

With  knees  clasped  close,  and  bridle-hand 

The  charger  ready  to  command, 

And  steady  seat  and  flashing  eye, 

All  ready  now  to  do  or  die. 

"Fours,  Right!"  and  "Head  of  Column,  Right!" 

And  we  are  speeding  toward  the  fight. 

Going  into  Battle 

What  thoughts  and   fears  unbidden  come 

Of  death,  defeat,  or  distant  home, 

As  soldiers  view  the  sickening  sight 

That  fills  the  rear  of  every  fight ! 

For  here  spent  balls  go  whistling  by, 

While  bursting  shells  shriek  through  the  sky, 

And  cowards  slink,  and  loose  steeds  fly, 

While  wounded  men  for  water  cry ; 

And  caissons  rushing  to  the  rear 

To  be  refilled  from  wagons  near 

Make  seeming  sure  defeat  appear. 

Here  brave  men  feel  they  need  their  zeal 

And  here  the  coward  turns  the  heel. 

But  when  the  soldier  takes  the  front 

And  mixes  in  the  battle's  brunt, 

And  sees  long  lines  unbroken  stand, 

And  columns  moving  at  command, 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  351 

And  rushes  met  and  charges  given 
O'er  ground  by  shot  and  shrapnel  riven, 
And  feels  our  flag  in  battle  fly, 
And  hears  brave  men  exultant  die, 
The  sight  shown  them  by  fighting  men 
Might   bring  the   dead  to   life  again. 

The  Battle-Field 

We  reach  the  front  and  there  we  spy 

A  scene  'tw're  worth  a  life  to  buy. 

Six  thousand  men  with  General  Paine 

Are  fighting  an  escape  to  gain 

From   twenty  thousand   of  the   foe 

That  like  a  serpent  sure  and  slow 

Are  coiling  round  the   near-doomed  men 

For  slaugther  or  for  prison  pen. 

One  single  bridge  Paine's  men  must  pass, 

But  rebel  guns  sweep  it,  alas ! 

No  help   seems  near   in   their   distress, 

To  ease  the  awful  battle  press 

Of  rebels  near,  in  flank  and  rear, 

Or  let  one  ray  of  hope  appear. 

The  Forlorn  Hope 

One  desperate  chance  is  still  at  hand : 

Our  regiment  unbroken   stand. 

If  we  are  given  to  slaughter  dire 

To  charge  the  foe  and  draw  their  fire, 

We   may   perhaps   check  that   advance 

And  give  Paine's  men  some  little  chance. 

Such  hope  forlorn  escape  to  gain, 

Up  to  our  front  dashed  General  Paine : 

Like  crash  of  drums  the  order  comes : 

''Charge  those  batteries  !    Take  the  guns  !" 


3S2  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  Charge 

Now  springs  our  blood  with  quickest  leaps, 

For  battle  conflict  nigh; 
We  settle  firmly  in  our  seats 

And  draw  our  curb-lines  high. 
On  yonder  hill  are  twenty  guns 

That  death  and  slaughter  deal ; 
Behind  them  fifteen  thousand  men, 

With  burnished  rows  of  steel; 
And  we  five  hundred  men  alone 

Must  charge  that  grand  array, 
And  save  our  men,  as  best  we  can, 

Or  die  with  them  today. 
"Attention !"  loud  the  order  rings 

Throughout  the  smoke-dimmed  air; 
Wre  calm  our  steeds  as  best  we  may 

And  dress  our  lines  with  care. 
"Draw,  Sabre !"  and  like  lightning  flash 

Our   swords   gleam  bright  and  high. 
Then,  "Forward,  March !"  adown  the  ranks 

Resounds  the  bugle's  cry. 
With  stirrup  click  and  scabbard  clang 

And  hoof -beat  steady  fall, 
We  forward  march  in  battle  line 

And  list  the  bugle's  call. 
"Trot,  March !"  it  sounds.     Our  line  like  wave 

On  storm-swept  ocean  runs. 
The  foe  cease  firing  on  Paine's  men 

And  turn  on  us  their  guns. 
Then,  "Gallop,  March !"  and  on  we  dash 

Through  smoke  and  cannon's  roar, 
While  shot  and  shell,  a  battle-hell, 

Into  our  ranks  they  pour. 
"Charge!"  rings  the  order  out; 
"Charge!"  all  the  bugles  flout; 
"Charge !"  hear  the  answering  shout ; 
And  our  steeds  with  flying  leap 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  353 

O'er  the  ground  a  cyclone  sweep. 

O'er  a  ditch  and  plowed  field,  then 

Over  line  of  our  own  men. 

On,  on  the  colors  fly ; 

"On  !'  e'en  the  wounded  cry ; 

"On  !"  shout  the  boys  reply. 
Now,  the  guns  are  near  at  hand ; 
Smoke-grimed  gunners   round  them   stand. 
Now  the  sabre  shows  its  powers; 
Now  the  smoking  guns  are  ours. 

"Halt !"  Bugles  sound  "Recall !" 

Halt !  many  comrades  fall. 

Halt !  or   we   perish    all. 
General  Paine  is  safe  once  more  ; 
O'er  the  bridge  his  troops  now  pour. 
Needless  now  our  longer  stay; 
Now  retire  while  yet  we  may. 
Rescuing  our  wounded  men, 
Past  the  ditch  and  field  again, 
Scattered  wide  as  best  betide 
Our  broken  force,  we  quickly  ride. 

Query 

Was  it  a  victory  or  defeat? 

We'll  let  the  nation  say. 
We  saved  Paine's  men  from  prison  pen, 

Or  utter   rout  that  day. 

In  another  movement  my  regiment  with  the  Second 
Michigan  Cavalry  made  what  the  War  Department  re- 
ports call,  "the  first  cavalry  raid  of  the  war."  We 
passed  around  the  Confederates'  right  flank  and  broke 
the  communication  below  Corinth  in  their  rear,  captured 
two  thousand  prisoners,  destroyed  much  property,  and 
compelled  the  evacuation  of  Corinth.  (See  Volume  i, 
Page  144,  Sheridan's  Memoirs.) 


354  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

But  for  this  expedition,  General  Phil  Sheridan  miglit 
never  have  been  known  to  the  country  except  as  an 
efficient  quartermaster.  General  Elliott,  one  time  the 
colonel  of  my  regiment,  at  a  reunion  of  that  organization 
held  long  after  the  war,  related  to  a  squad  of  us  these 
facts :  When  the  raid  was  ordered  General  Elliott,  then 
Colonel  Elliott,  was  commanding  a  brigade  composed  of 
my  regiment,  the  Second  Iowa  Cavalry,  and  the  Second 
Michigan  Cavalry,  which  last  had  no  efficient  commander. 
Colonel  Elliott  went  to  General  Halleck  and  said,  "Do 
you  consider  the  raid  you  have  ordered  me  to  make  to  be 
important  ?" 

General  Halleck  replied,  "It  is  of  the  utmost  import- 
ance that  you  make  it. a  success." 

"It  is  impossible  to  succeed  in  the  movement  with  the 
present  commander  of  the  Second  Michigan  Cavalry," 
replied  the  Colonel,  "but  if  you  will  give  me  the  man  I 
want  to  command  this  regiment  I  will  promise  you  it 
shall  be  everything  you  want." 

"Who  is  the  man  you  want?" 

"Capt.  Phil.  Sheridan,"  said  Elliott. 

"Impossible,"  replied  General  Halleck,  "We  cannot 
spare  him  from  the  quartermaster  department  where  he 
has  brought  order  from  confusion." 

In  vain  Colonel  Elliott  pleaded,  saying,  "Captain 
Sheridan  is  doing  duty  any  good  wagon  master  could 
perform  and  we  need  him  in  the  line  of  battle." 

But  General  Halleck  was  obdurate,  and  to  close  the 
discussion  said,  "You  have  no  political  pull  in  Michigan 
and  could  not  get  him  commissioned  if  I  should  let  you 
have  him,  and  that  is  the  end  of  the  matter." 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  355 

But  it  was  not  the  end  of  the  matter.  Governor  Blair 
was  visiting  the  wounded  Michigan  men  on  the  field,  and 
Colonel  Elliott  went  immediately  to  him  and  stated  the 
case.  The  result  was,  the  Governor  took  a  used  official 
envelope  from  his  pocket,  tore  it  apart  and  upon  the 
unused  side  wrote  an  informal  commision  saying,  "When 
I  get  back  to  Michigan  I  will  send  a  formal  commission 
of  this  date."  This  commission,  coupled  with  the  neces- 
sity of  a  successful  raid  and  the  pleadings  of  Colonel 
Elliott,  compelled  General  Halleck  to  yield,  and  that 
night  Colonel  Sheridan  with  a  borrowed  pair  of  Eagles 
on  his  captain's  uniform  led  his  regiment  upon  this  first 
raid  of  the  war. 

In  closing  his  statement  General  Elliott  said,  "General 
Sheridan  in  his  memoirs  says,  in  effect,  that  he  does  not 
know  who  recommended  him  for  the  position.  The  truth 
is  so  many  had  claimed  the  honor  he  dared  not  make  a 
host  of  enemies  out  of  warm  friends  by  stating  the  facts, 
but  he  knows  them  and  I  know  them  and  that  is  enough 
for  us." 

It  was  also  enough  for  us,  his  hearers,  and  should  be 
enough  for  the  country.  We  knew  nothing  could  compel 
General  Elliott  to -misrepresent  a  word,  and  here  there 
was  not  the  slightest  inducement  for  a  false  statement. 
The  successful  result  of  the  raid  made  Colonel  Elliott 
General  Elliott.  He  was  taken  away  from  us  and  given 
a  division  of  infantry,  and  Colonel  Sheridan  succeeded  to 
the  command  of  the  brigade. 

After  Corinth  was  evacuated  we  were  almost  con- 
stantly in  the  field,  frequently  skirmishing  with  the 
enemy.    On  July  1st,  with  our  chum  regiment,  the  Second 


356  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Michigan  Cavalry,  we  met  the  Confederate  General 
Chalmers  at  Booneville,  who  outnumbered  us  over  five 
to  one — eight  hundred  to  four  thousand — and  whipped 
him  so  thoroughly  that  it  stripped  the  newly  found  eagle 
from  the  shoulder  of  the  commander  of  our  brigade, 
Phil  Sheridan,  and  gave  him  the  first  star  of  his  final 
cluster.  For  particulars  of  that  brilliant  fight,  see  Sheri- 
dan's Memoirs,  Volume  I,  Page  156.  This  gave  our  two 
regiments  the  unusual  record  of  making  two  brigadier 
generals,  Elliott  and  Sheridan,  within  sixty  days. 

We  participated  in  the  Battles  of  Iuka  and  Corinth  in 
September  and  October,  and  when  General  Grant  made 
the  only  campaign  in  which  he  failed,  his  fruitless  and 
little  mentioned  campaign  toward  Vicksburg  in  Novem- 
ber and  December.  Either  alone  or  in  conjunction  with 
other  cavalry  units  we  formed,  as  was  our  duty,  the  front 
of  the  advance,  the  rear  of  the  retirement;  and,  as  cir- 
cumstances happened  to  require  it,  did  most  of  the  fight- 
ing developed  in  that  movement. 

Let  a  few  facts  show  the  strenuous  character  of  this 
first  and  little  noticed  Vicksburg  campaign.  From  No- 
vember 2nd  until  December  25th  we,  the  cavalry,  were 
away  from  our  camp  and  garrison  equipment,  slept  on 
the  ground  with  only  our  blankets  and  ponchoes  for 
covering,  and  lived  largely  on  what  the  country  afforded 
— sometimes  abundant,  sometimes  scarce,  sometimes 
entirely  wanting.  In  the  last  thirty  days  of  the  campaign 
we  averaged  41^  miles  a  day,  crossing  bridgeless 
streams,  climbing  through  mountain  trails,  and  skirmish- 
ing with  the  "Johnnies." 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  357 

RECAPITULATION  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1862 

(See  map,  pages  332~333) 
Objectives 

East  of  the  mountains  : 

1.  The  Confederate  Capitol,  Richmond. 
West  of  the  mountains : 

2.  To  drive  the  Confederates  out  of  Missouri. 

3.  To  reach  and  relieve  the  Union  men  in  East  Ten- 
nessee. 

4.  To  open  the  Mississippi  River. 

Decisive  Battles 

East  of  the  mountains : 

General  McClellan's  many  bloody  encounters  on  the 
Chickahominy  River. 

General  Pope's  engagements  in  his  disastrous  move- 
ment in  Virginia ;  Antietam,  Fredericksburg. 

West  of  the  mountains : 

Pea  Ridge,  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson,  Pittsburg 
Landing,  Corinth. 

Island  No.  10,  Memphis,  Forts  Jackson  and  St. 
Philips,  New  Orleans. 

Perryville,  Murfreesboro. 

Findings 

East  of  the  mountains: 

Objective  No.  1  failed.  The  Confederate  battle  line 
remained  practically  unchanged. 

West  of  the  mountains: 


358  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Objective  No.  2  fully  attianed. 

Objective  No.  3  made  possible  for  next  year. 

Objective  No.  4  attained  except  the  space  between 
Port  Hudson  and  Vicksburg. 

The  battle  line  was  pushed  across  nearly  two  states, 
and  as  far  south  as  a  line  running  from  Little  Rock, 
Arkansas,  via  Vicksburg  and  Chattanooga  to  the  moun- 
tains. 

Section  IV.   The  Campaign  of  1863 

In  this  year  the  Union  armies  had  five  objectives. 
East  of  the  mountains  there  was  still  the  one  of  the  year 
before:  Richmond.  West  of*  the  mountains  there  re- 
mained two  of  the.  year  before,  the  relief  of  East  Ten- 
nessee and  the  opening  of  the  Mississippi ;  and  then  two 
more  in  connection  with  these :  to  push  the  Confederate 
line  west  of  the  river  as  far  south  as  possible,  and  to 
capture  Chattanooga.  These  four  objectives  in  the  West 
might  be  summed  up  in  one:  to  break  the  enemy's  third 
line  of  defense,  from  Little  Rock,  through  Vicksburg 
and  Chattanooga  to  the  Alleghany  mountains. 

General  Grant  had  collected  his  army  on  the  river 
bank  opposite  Vicksburg  (38)  early  in  the  year  and  had 
kept  it  busy  digging  a  canal  across  a  bend  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, exploring  the  Yazoo,  and  other  movements  from 
which  he  did  not  expect  greater  results  than  that  of  keep- 
ing the  army  awake  and  fit  for  his  coming  campaign. 

His  plan  conceived  for  the  capture  of  the  city  was  a 
daring  one  and  none  of  his  officers  approved  it.  It  in- 
volved a  violation  of  many  rules  of  military  procedure, 
even  General  Sherman,  his  loyal  supporter  at  all  times, 
wrote  him  protesting  against  it,  saying  in  effect  he  wsfs 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  359 

placing  his  army  voluntarily  where  the  enemy  would  be 
willing  to  expend  many  men  and  much  money  to  have  it. 
This  plan  was  to  march  his  army  down  the  west  bank  of 
the  river  until  he  found  an  available  crossing,  then  to  have 
the  gunboats  and  some  of  the  transports  run  the  batteries 
of  Vicksburg  and  proceed  down  the  river  until  they 
reached  him.  With  their  help,  he  would  then  cross  to  the 
east  side  of  the  stream  with  his  whole  army.  Having  thus 
found  footing  on  the  Vicksburg  side  of  the  river  south 
of  that  city,  his  intention  was  to  cut  all  his  communica- 
tions, march  boldly  into  the  country,  throw  his  army 
between  those  of  Johnston  at  Jackson  (52)  and  Pember- 
ton  at  Vicksburg  (38)  and  prevent  their  meeting.  This 
being  accomplished,  he  proposed  to  whip  Johnston  first, 
then  turn  upon  Pemberton,  defeat  him,  and  drive  his 
forces  back  into  Vicksburg.  Should  all  this  succeed,  he 
would  follow  Pemberton  to  Vicksburg  and  would  be  in  a 
position  to  lay  siege  to  the  city. 

The  plan  worked  so  perfectly  that  its  general  outline 
as  made  before  the  expedition,  filled  in  with  particulars 
of  dates  and  locations  of  engagements,  would  have  made 
a  perfect  report  after  the  movement  was  completed. 

By  the  17th  of  April  the  Federal  forces  had  marched 
twenty  miles  below  Vicksburg  to  near  New  Carthage 
(53)  on  the  west  bank  of  the  river.  There  they  met  the 
gunboats  that  had  run  the  batteries.  On  the  22nd  five 
transports  reached  them  by  the  same  thrillingly  hazardous 
route,  and  the  troops  were  ferried  across  the  river.  May 
1st  Grant  took  Fort  Gibson  (54)  on  the  east  side  of  the 
river,  cut  his  communications,  and  started  for  the  interior 
of  Mississippi. 


360  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

General  Grant  had  not  informed  Washington  officials 
of  his  intended  plan,  he  dared  not  do  it.  Had  he  done  so 
it  would  have  been  overruled.  Only  after  he  had  cut  his 
communications  did  Washington  headquarters  realize 
what  he  was  doing.  When  it  was  there  understood,  con- 
sternation reigned.  Dispatch  after  dispatch  was  sent  to 
recall  him  and  save  his  army,  as  they  thought,  from  sure 
destruction.  Grant  had  anticipated  just  this  when  he 
cut  off  his  communications,  and  he  took  great  care  that 
no  orders  from  his  superiors  should  reach  him  until  he 
had  either  succeeded  or  failed. 

But  Grant  did  not  fail.  On  the  12th  of  May  he  fought 
the  battle  of  Raymond  (55),  and  placed  his  army  between 
Johnston  and  Pemberton  as  he  had  planned.  On  the  14th 
he  defeated  Johnston  at  the  city  of  Jackson  (52),  then 
turned  upon  Pemberton  and  met  him  at  Champion  Hill 
(56)  on  the  1 6th,  and  drove  him,  both  here  and  at  the 
crossing  of  Black  River,  with  great  loss  and  thorough 
disorganization,  into  Vicksburg  (38).  By  the  19th,  the 
city  was  fully  invested  and  the  first  assault  made.  On 
the  22nd  a  better  organized  and  more  costly  assault  was 
delivered,  but  as  both  failed  the  Federal  army  settled 
down  to  a  close  and  determined  siege.  The  siege  term- 
inated on  the  4th  day  of  July  at  which  time  Pemberton 
surrendered  the  city  with  32,000  men,  72  cannon,  and 
huge  stores  of  small  arms  and  war'materials. 

While  Grant  had  been  besieging  Vicksburg,  General 
Banks  and  Admiral  Porter  were  endeavoring  to  capture 
Port  Hudson  (37),  and  had  made  several  unsuccessful 
assaults  thereon.  As  soon  as  it  was  proved  to  the  Con- 
federate commander  of  Port  Hudson  that  Vicksburg  had 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  361 

fallen,  he  immediately  capitulated  with  all  his  men  and 
supplies.  The  Mississippi  was  now  open  from  its  source 
to  the  sea,  never  again  to  be  closed,  and  the  greatest 
objective  in  the  West  was  finally  obtained.  The  opening 
of  the  river  cost  the  Confederates  in  their  defeat  sixty  to 
seventy  thousand  men,  a  number  over  four  times  what 
the  victory  cost  the  Federals.  It  was  a  blow  the  South 
never  recovered  from. 

But  Yicksburg  and  Port  Hudson  were  not  the  only 
victories  in  the  West.  General  Rosecrans,  who  since  his 
victory  at  Murfreesboro  (41),  had  been  there  recruiting 
and  reorganizing  his  army,  advanced  in  the  latter  part 
of  June  upon  the  Confederate  forces  under  General 
Bragg  and  by  the  6th  of  July  compelled  him  to  retire  to 
Chattanooga  (29)  with  a  loss  of  two  thousand  men, 
against  five  hundred  lost  by  the  Federals. 

In  the  early  days  of  September  Burnside  and  Rosecrans 
made  a  simultaneous  movement.  Burnside  started  from 
Lexington,  Kentucky  (57),  through  the  gaps  of  the 
Cumberland  Mountains  (18),  drove  General  Buckner  and 
his  Confederate  forces  away  from  Knoxville  (58),  cap- 
tured that  city,  and  accomplished  President  Lincoln's  long 
desired  objective — the  relief  of  the  Union  men  of  east 
Tennessee. 

Meanwhile  Rosecrans,  above  Chattanooga,  had  de- 
ceived the  Confederates  into  thinking  he  intended  to  go 
into  eastern  Tennessee  and  join  Burnside.  But  instead  of 
so  doing  he  crossed  the  Tennesse  River  at  Bridgeport 
(59)  without  opposition,  gained  the  mountain  passes 
southwest  of  Chattanooga,  and  directed  his  march  toward 
the   railroad   at   Dalton    (60),    the   base   of   supplies   of 


362  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Bragg's  army.  This  compelled  the  Confederate  general 
to  evacuate  Chattanooga  and  that  valuable  military  center 
became  ours  on  the  9th  of  September. 

This  war-center  was  far  too  valuable  to  lose  without 
further  effort.  General  Bragg  was  reinforced  by  General 
Longstreet  from  Richmond,  and  on  the  19th  and  20th  of 
September  one  of  the  most  hotly  contested  battles  of  the 
war  was  fought  on  the  banks  of  the  Chickamauga,  a 
stream  about  ten  miles  south  of  the  captured  city. 

This  battle  has  usually  been  considered  a  Confederate 
victory,  but  I  cannot  so  view  it.  The  whole  campaign  and 
the  battle  itself  were  conducted  for  the  possession  of 
Chattanooga.  We  retained  that  place  then  and  ever  since. 
The  victory,  certainly  in  the  campaign  if  not  in  the  battle, 
was  ours.  That  gallant  Confederate  general,  D.  H.  Hill, 
who  participated  in  the  fight,  seems  to  agree  with  me 
when  he  writes,  "And  Chattanooga,  the  objective  point  of 
the  campaign,  was  held.  That  barren  victory  sealed  the 
fate  of  the  southern  Confederacy." 

As  soon  as  Bragg  discovered  that  Rosecrans  intended 
to  hold  Chattanooga,  he  posted  his  forces  along  Mission- 
ary Ridge  and  Lookout  Mountain  overlooking  the  city 
from  the  south,  and  commenced  a  close  siege.  His  bat- 
tery upon  Lookout  Mountain  commanded  the  Tennessee 
River  and  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  railroad,  and 
prevented  any  ammunition,  rations,  or  materials  reach- 
ing the  Federals  from  that  direction.  The  only  method 
of  obtaining  such  necessary  supplies  was  to  haul  them 
by  wagon  over  almost  impassable  roads  from  Jasper, 
twenty-five  miles  away  as  the  crow  flies,  but  the  distance 
was  made  nearly  sixty  by  the  windings  and  elevations  of 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  363 

the  Walden  Mountains  through  which  the  road  ran. 
Worse  yet,  General  Wheeler  with  his  cavalry  succeeded 
in  reaching  the  road  and  in  destroying  our  wagon  trains. 
Forage  became  so  scarce  for  the  animals  of  the  Federals 
that  they  starved  by  thousands,  until  none  were  left  to 
move  artillery,  wagons,  or  even  ambulances.  The  men 
were  given  shorter  and  shorter  rations  until  a  half  pound 
of  pork  and  four  crackers  and  a  little  beef  "dried  on  the 
hoof"  were  an  allowance  for  three  days. 

It  was  now  the  middle  of  October.  Rosecrans  had 
decided  to  retreat,  but  to  prevent  that  disaster  he  was 
relieved  from  duty  on  the  17th  of  that  month.  General 
Thomas  was  put  in  his  place,  and  General  Grant  was 
assigned  to  the  command  of  the  whole  Military  Division 
of  the  Mississippi.  General  Grant  immediately  tele- 
graphed Thomas  that  he  must  "hold  Chattanooga  at  all 
hazards  and  he  would  come  to  him  without  delay."  The 
prompt  reply  came,  "We  will  hold  the  town  until  we 
starve."  The  army  in  Chattanooga  did  not  starve ;  it  held 
the  town,  and  in  the  latter  part  of  the  month  the  "Cracker 
Line"  was  opened  and  the  famishing  men  and  few  re- 
maining animals  received  full  rations  once  more. 

Less  than  a  month  from  the  time  of  this  relief,  the 
Army  of  the  Cumberland,  which  had  been  driven  back 
from  Chickamauga,  held,  according  to  Confederate  re- 
ports, "prisoners  in  Chattanooga  and  compelled  to  board 
itself,"  and  which  had  submitted  during  all  this  time  to 
many  insults  and  jeers  from  the  enemy  overlooking  it, 
had  at  last  ample  chance  for  revenge,  and  gallantly  it 
embraced  the  opportunity.  With  Hooker  on  its  right, 
who  came  to  it  from  the  east,  and  Sherman  on  its  left, 
who  had  reinforced  it  from  the  west,  on  the  23rd,  24th, 


364  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

and  25th  of  November  it  charged  the  enemy  under  Gen- 
eral Bragg  on  Lookout  Mountain,  Missionary  Ridge, 
and  Tunnel  Hill,  broke  his  front,  captured  his  artillery, 
drove  him,  defeated  and  disorganized,  toward  his  base 
of  supplies  at  Dalton  (60),  Georgia.  This  defeat  of 
Bragg  drove  Longstreet,  Buckner,  and  all  other  Confed- 
erate forces  out  of  east  Tennessee,  and  the  Alleghany 
Mountains  from  this  time  on  became  the  limit  of  the 
Confederate  permanent  occupation  as  far  south  as 
Chattanooga. 

The  same  month  General  Schofield  cleaned  Kansas 
and  north  Arkansas  of  Confederate  forces  and  took  pos- 
session of  Little  Rock  (61)  and  the  north  bank  of  the 
Arkansas  River. 

Thus  the  campaign  of  1863  west  of  the  mountains 
closed,  as  in  1862,  triumphantly  for  the  Federal  arms, 
all  of  the  desired  objectives  west  of  the  mountains  hav- 
ing been  completely  won. 

East  of  the  mountains,  the  objective  was  still  Rich- 
mond, and  the  story  was  somewhat  different.  General 
Hooker  commanding  the  Federal  forces,  crossed  the 
Rappahannock  River  on  the  28th  of  April.  He  met  the 
enemy  at  Chancellorsville  (67),  on  the  1st,  2nd,  and  3rd 
of  May,  and  was  so  badly  defeated  that  Lee  felt  safe  to 
again   invade  the   North. 

On  the  third  day  of  June  he  started  with  his  army 
from  Culpepper  Court  House  (45)  and  crossed  the 
Potomac  near  Sharpsburg  (48)  and  Hagerstown  (65). 
By  the  28th  his  forces  had  penetrated  Pennsylvania  as 
far  as  York  (62)  and  Wrightsville  (63)  toward  the  east 
and  Chambersburg  (64)  toward  the  west. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  365 

On  the  30th  the  two  armies  met  on  the  Chambersburg 
road  just  east  of  Gettysburg  (66)  and  prepared  for  the 
greatest  conflict  of  the  war,  the  renowned  "Battle  of 
Gettysburg,"  fought  on  the  1st,  2nd  and  3rd  days  of 
July.  In  the  battle  fifty  thousand  men  were  killed  or 
wounded,  the  Confederate  army  was  defeated,  and  the 
Southern  cause  received  its  death  blow. 

For  some  reason  Lee  was  permitted  to  withdraw  his 
defeated  forces  across  the  Potomac  River  and  the  cam- 
paign of   1863  practically  closed  with  that  engagement. 

We  find  by  consulting  the  map  that,  as  the  result  of 
the  campaign  of  1863  east  of  the  mountains,  the  Confed- 
erate battle  line  practically  remained  unchanged,  but 
west  of  the  mountains  it  had  been  pushed  from  Vicksburg 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  out  of  east  Tennessee  and  central 
Arkansas,  and  again  broken  at  Chattanooga. 

Working  in  connection  with  General  Grant's  second 
movement  toward  Vicksburg,  my  regiment  in  this  cam- 
paign started  from  La  Grange,  Tennessee,  the  morning 
of  March  10th.  We  were  sent  to  destroy  a  railroad 
bridge  across  the  Tallahatchie  River  near  Waterford, 
Mississippi.  Thirty-six  hours,  almost  continuously  in  the 
saddle,  saw  the  work  accomplished,  the  bridge  burned, 
and  men  and  horses  exhausted. 

Our  orders  having  been  obeyed  and  our  objective  won, 
we  expected  to  take  a  little  rest,  but  such  blessing  was  not 
ours  to  enjoy.  Our  supper  was  not  over  before  news 
came  that  a  rebel  force  four  times  our  number  was  be- 
tween us  and  our  camp  at  La  Grange  waiting  to  inter- 
cept us  in  the  morning.  In  our  worn-out  condition  we 
should  not  fight  such  odds  if  possible  to  avoid  it.    There- 


366  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

fore,  "Boots  and  Saddles"  was  blown,  and — thanks  to 
the  guidance  of  a  Union  citizen  who  knew  all  the  paths 
of  the  country — with  almost  unprecedented  hard  riding 
for  men  and  horses,  we  slipped  around  the  waiting 
enemy,  and  made  our  camp  in  safety. 

When  we  reached  this  safe  haven  many  of  the  boys 
had  to  be  lifted  from  the  saddles  upon  the  backs  of  their 
nearly  dying  horses.  They  had  been  in  those  saddles 
almost  continuously  three  days  and  two  nights.  Not  a 
man  was  lost ;  but  as  horses  gave  out  they  had,  as  usual, 
been  exchanged  for  any  riding  beast  opportunity  offered 
or  a  trooper's  fancy  might  choose. 

It  is  strange  how  much  sleep  troopers  in  these  circum- 
stances may  catch.  I  have  been  along  the  line  of  our 
company  in  the  night,  when  the  column  was  traveling  at 
the  regular  rate  and  found  hardly  a  man  awake.  They 
slept  as  long  as  the  column  moved  as  usual,  but  awoke  if 
it  accelerated  its  pace  or  stopped.  There  was  no  danger 
in  riders  falling  off,  and  little  danger  of  the  horses  leaving 
the  ranks  and  taking  the  men  they  knew  not  where. 
Ninety-nine  horses  in  a  hundred  would  stick  to  their 
company  and  to  their  places  in  the  company  as  long  as 
life  was  in  them,  the  one  hundredth,  had  to  be  watched 
for.  In  the  rear  of  each  all-night  ride,  was  kept  a  rear 
guard  of  the  least  fatigued  men  to  watch  for  straying 
horses  carrying  off  sleeping  soldiers. 

On  the  17th  of  April  our  regiment,  the  Second  Iowa 
Cavalry,  in  company  with  the  Sixth  and  Seventh  Illinois 
Cavalry,  all  under  command  of  Colonel  B.  H.  Grierson 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  367 

of  the  6th  Illinois,  started  out  on  the  celebrated  Grierson 
raid  ordered  by  General  Grant  to  divert  attention  from 
his  movements  south  and  in  the  rear  of  Vicksburg. 

Colonel  Grierson  was  ordered  to  leave  the  Memphis 
and  Charleston  road  at  La  Grange  near  Memphis,  break 
through  the  enemy's  lines  and  raid  from  north  to  south 
through  central  Mississippi.  We  were  directed  to  tear 
up  railroads  as  we  could,  destroy  all  military  stores  and 
supplies  as  we  might,  fight  the  enemy  as  we  dared,  and 
if  possible  join  our  own  forces  stationed  at  Baton  Rouge 
in  Louisiana. 

Courage,  caution,  and  good  luck  combining,  we  were 
enabled  to  comply  with  our  orders  most  satisfactorily. 
Sixteen  days  from  the  time  the  brigade  started  upon  its 
raid  the  men  of  the  Sixth  and  Seventh  Illinois  Cavalry, 
having  ridden  nearly  eight  hundred  miles,  dusty,  dirty, 
half-dead  from  long  hours  in  saddle  and  from  want  of 
sleep,  but  proud  as  peacocks,  with  their  long  line  of 
prisoners  and  record  of  work  well  done,  rode  into  Baton 
Rouge  and  modestly  acknowledged  the  cheers  of  every 
citizen  and  soldier  who  could  possibly  go  there  to  greet 
them. 

But  where  was  the  Second  Iowa  Cavalry?  That  is 
another  story.  Our  raid,  in  strategy,  resembled  that  of 
the  three  darkies  after  chickens.  The  only  obstacle  to 
success  was  a  big  savage  bull  dog.  When  they  reached 
the  coop  they  agreed  that  Sambo  should  catch  the  dog 
and  hold  him  while  Pomp  and  Caesar  chased  out  the 
chickens  and  got  the  glory.  How  Sambo  was  to  get 
away  from  the  dog  was  left  for  him  to  accomplish  as 
best  he  could.     Such  was  the  strategy  in  this  raid.     We 


368  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

broke  through  the  Confederate  lines  and  marched  slowly 
and  prominently  southward.  Our  forces  were  counted 
to  a  man  by  the  enemy,  and  our  weapons  to  a  gun.  The 
idea  was  to  induce  the  Confederates  to  collect  all  their 
forces  between  us  and  our  base  of  supplies  at  La  Grange 
to  capture  us.  We  succeeded  admirably  in  the  first  part 
of  that  project.  By  the  time  we  had  gone  as  far  south 
as  West  Point,  the  enemy  had  collected  plenty  of  men, 
as  they  thought,  to  capture  the  whole  expedition. 

Now  was  the  time  to  act.  My  regiment  was  detailed 
to  catch  and  "hold  the  dog."  In  other  words  we  were 
to  stop  and  fight  the  whole  of  the  following  forces  and, 
if  possible,  make  the  enemy  believe  we  were  the  entire 
expedition,  and  draw  them  off  after  us  toward  Columbus, 
while  Grierson  with  the  other  two  regiments  were  to  put 
spurs  to  their  horses  and  burn  the  ground  to  get  beyond 
following  distance  while  we  were  attending  to  the  dog. 
With  mutual  God-speeds  and  well-wishes,  the  boys 
parted,  doubting  much  if  they  would  ever  meet  again 
unless  it  be  in  some  rebel  prison. 

The  stratagem  succeeded  perfectly.  We  had  not  the 
slightest  trouble  in  getting  the  "Johnnies"  to  fight  us, 
and  we  were  so  successful  in  covering  the  course  of  our 
comrades  that  the  enemy  hung  on  to  us  for  thirty-six 
hours,  thinking  they  were  engaging  the  whole  expedition. 
That  length  of  time  placed  Grierson  and  his  men  beyond 
their  pursuit;  so  it  was  time  then  for  us  to  "let  go  of 
the  dog"  and  get  away,  if  we  could. 

It  was  a  stiff  problem  to  "let  go."  We  were  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Tippah  River,  whose  every  known  ford 
where  we  could  cross  was  guarded.     Cross  we  must  in 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  369 

order  to  reach  our  own  lines,  for  there  were  enough 
Confederates  around  us  on  the  south  side  of  the  river  to 
"eat  us  up"  if  they  could  only  get  a  square  chance  at  us. 
Many  a  commander  has  surrendered  under  a  less  gloomy 
outlook  than  this,  but  Hatch  was  no  such  leader.  He 
found  a  negro  who  guided  us  through  a  swamp,  miles 
away  from  any  guarded  ford.  There  we  found  lodged 
flood-wood  that  would  permit  the  men  to  cross  on  foot 
with  saddles,  arms,  and  ammunition.  As  the  night  was 
densely  dark,  large  fires  were  built  on  each  side  of  the 
stream  to  light  the  men  across  the  flood-wood.  Then  the 
troopers  pushed  horses  one  at  a  time,  off  the  steep  bank 
on  the  south  side  of  the  river  and  coaxed  and  drove  them 
until  they  swam  across  to  the  north  bank  where  bugles 
blew  stable-call  and  men  waited  to  help  them  up  the 
precipitous  north  shore. 

Thus,  by  daylight  we  were  across  the  river,  again  in 
our  saddles,  with  our  lines  in  front  and  the  enemy  in  the 
rear.  We  felt  ourselves  now  fully  competent  to  show  the 
"Johnnies"  a  clean  set  of  heels,  and  we  proceeded  to  do 
so;  but  not  so  recklessly  as  to  forget  to  take  with  us  to 
camp  six  hundred  fresh  horses  and  two  hundred  able- 
bodied  darkies  who  "adhered"  to  us,  and  quite  a  number 
of  prisoners. 

But  this  was  not  all  of  our  services  in  1863.  We 
went,  with  other  regiments,  toward  Senatoba  in  May,  and 
at  Wall  Hill  so  shamefully  used  Confederate  General 
Chalmers  and  his  forces  that  the  ladies  of  the  first-men- 
tioned place  presented  the  gallant  General  with  a  hoop 
skirt  and  a  corncob  pipe. 


370  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

In  June  we  were  on  the  Mississippi  River  hunting 
trouble,  and  again  after  General  Chalmers.  In  July  we 
fought  General  Forrest  near  Jackson,  Tennessee.  In 
August,  under  command  of  our  own  Colonel  D.  E.  Coon, 
we  made  a  raid  to  Granada,  Mississippi,  and  captured  the 
place  together  with  sixty  locomotives,  five  hundred  cars 
of  all  kinds,  and  materials  too  numerous  and  extensive  to 
mention,  all  of  which  were  completely  destroyed. 

From  the  27th  of  August  until  the  first  of  November 
our  government,  to  our  disgust,  gave  us  a  chance  to  rest 
from  our  raiding  by  cooping  us  up  in  the  city  of  Memphis 
with  little  duty  to  perform.  Gladly  we  escaped  from  this 
idle  camp  on  the  time  stated,  and  for  the  last  sixty  days 
of  the  year  we  were  more  or  less  constantly  employed 
through  northern  Mississippi  and  southern  Tennessee, 
scouting  and  fighting  with  varying  success  Confederate 
Generals  George,  Forrest,  and  S.  D.  Lee. 

RECAPITULATION  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1863 
(See  map,  pages  332~333) 

Objectives 

East  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains : 

1.  The  capitol  of  the  Confederacy,  Richmond. 
West  of  the  Alleghanies : 

2.  To  complete  the  opening  of  the  Mississippi  River. 

3.  To  push  the  Confederate  line  west  of  that  river  as 
far  south  as  possible. 

4.  To  finish  the  expedition  for  the  relief  of  Union 
men  in  east  Tennessee. 

5.  To  break  the  enemy's  line  at  Chattanooga. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  371 

Decisive  Battles 

East  of  the  Alleghanies: 

Chancellorsville,  Gettysburg. 

West  of  the  Alleghanies: 

Port  Gibson,  Raymond,  Jackson,  Vicksburg,  Port 
Hudson,  Chickamauga,  Missionary  Ridge. 

Findings 

East  of  the  Alleghanies : 

Objective  failed,  but  the  battle  line  was  forced  part 
way  toward  Richmond. 

West  of  the  Alleghanies : 

Objective  No.  2' attained. 

Objective  No.  3  attained  and  the  battle  line  driven 
south  to  the  Arkansas  River. 

Objective  No.  4  attained  by  the  occupation  of  Knox- 
ville  by  General  Burnside. 

Objective  No.  5  attained. 

Section  V.     The  Campaign  of  1864 

In  the  west,  after  the  indecisive  and  more  or  less  dis- 
appointing movements  by  Banks  in  Louisiana  and  Sher- 
man and  Sooy  Smith  in  Mississippi,  the  grand  campaign 
for  the  year  was  commenced. 

General  Grant  had  been  placed  in  command  of  all  the 
armies  of  the  United  States  on  the  second  day  of  March, 
and  soon  issued  orders  that  placed  the  whole  Federal 
forces,  east  and  west,  in  motion  at  the  same  time,  under 
one  plan,  one  control,  and  for  one  united  purpose  with 


372  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

two  objectives:  first,  the  destruction  of  Lee's  army  and  its 
base  of  supplies  at  Richmond;  second,  Johnston's  army 
and  its  base  of  supplies  at  Atlanta. 

In  the  west,  Sherman,  who  had  succeeded  Grant  in 
command  of  all  forces  between  the  mountains  and  the 
Mississippi  River,  was  to  use  the  three  armies — of  Cum- 
berland under  Thomas,  Tennessee  under  McPherson,  and 
Ohio  under  Schofield — attack,  and,  if  possible,  destroy 
General  Joseph  E.  Johnston  who  had  collected  all  the 
Confederate  forces  of  any  size  or  importance  west  of  the 
mountains  at  Dalton  (60),  Georgia. 

In  the-  east,  Generals  Gilmore  and  Butler  were  to 
combine  their  forces  and  take  possession  of  City  Point 
(71),  on  the  James  River  about  twenty  miles  southeast 
of  Richmond.  Burnside  and  Meade  were  to  unite  their 
armies  and  march  on  Richmond  from  the  north. 

All  armies  commenced  their  movements  in  unison  on 
the  first  days  of  May;  Grant  making  his  headquarters 
with  the  army  of  the  Potomac  commanded  by  General 
Meade. 

The  operations  in  the  west  will  be  first  considered. 
Sherman  put  his  troops  in  motion  from  Chattanooga  to- 
ward Dalton  on  the  6th  of  May.  General  Johnston,  com- 
manding the  Confederate  forces,  was  one  of  the  most 
skillful  generals  that  the  enemy  possessed.  His  army  was 
not  as  large  as  the  Federal,  but  he  was  fighting  at  home ; 
he  had  no  long  line  of  railroad  to  guard  and  repair;  he 
was  not  compelled  to  supply  his  troops  from  a  far  distant 
base;  and  more  than  all,  the  country  back  from  Dalton 
(60),  to  Atlanta  (74),  was  mountainous  with  many  pas- 
ses that  made  defense  easy,  and  offense  difficult. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  37A 

General  Johnston  adopted  the  Fabian  policy  of  avoid- 
ing a  conflict  where  possible,  but  covering  continually  all 
approaches  to  his  base,  Atlanta.  Sherman  also  avoided 
front  attacks  and  vigorous  assaults  whenever  he  could, 
and  flanked  his  enemy  out  of  position  whenever  and 
wherever  circumstances  permitted. 

It  is  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  from 
Chattanooga  (29)  to  Atlanta  (74),  the  vicinity  of  which 
latter  place  Sherman  reached  July  18th.  Notwithstand- 
ing both  commanders  had  been  averse  to  unnecessary  con- 
flict between  their  forces,  there  had  been  at  least  seven- 
teen different  sharp  battles  in  which  very  considerable 
parts  of  their  armies  had  been  engaged,  and  skirmishing 
and  picket  clashes  had  been  almost  continuous. 

General  Sherman  says,  "When  the  Federals  reached 
Atlanta,  at  a  most  opportune  time  for  them  the  Confed- 
erate government  rendered  us  a  most  valuable  service. 
It  relieved  General  Johnston  and  placed  General  Hood  in 
command  of  its  army."  Hood  was  a  fighter.  President 
Davis  gave  him  command  for  that  very  reason.  He  in- 
structed him  to  come  out  of  Atlanta,  defeat  the  Federals, 
and  then  march  north  and  retake  Nashville  (68).  He 
did  his  best  to  obey  orders.  He  came  out  of  the  entrench- 
ments of  Atlanta,  and  fought  Sherman  in  the  open,  but 
was  defeated  in  every  engagement  until  by  September 
2nd  Sherman  was  occupying  Atlanta  and  the  Confeder- 
ates were  driven  out  of  the  entrenchments  of  that  city. 

•Hood  found  that  he  could  not  defeat  Sherman  in  open 
right,  and  now,  having  lost  his  defensive  position  in 
Atlanta,  he  was  driven  to  the  second  clause  of  President 
Davis'    instructions — to   invade   the    North   and   capture 


374  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Nashville.  This  was  just  what  Sherman  hoped  Hood 
would  try  to  do,  and  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "I  will 
build  Hood  a  silver  bridge  if' he  will  cross  the  Tennessee 
upon  it."  The  silver  bridge  did  not  have  to  be  built  foi 
Hood,  he  crossed  the  Tennessee  on  his  own  volition  and 
in  the  last  days. of  October  started  for  Nashville. 

Sherman,  thereupon,  placed  Thomas  in  charge  of  the 
defense  of  that  city  and  gave  him  what  troops  seemed 
necessary  for  the  purpose.  Hood  reached  Franklin, 
Tennessee  (69),  on  the  30th  of  November,  where  attempt- 
ing to  capture  Schofield  with  his  small  force  and  large 
supply  train,  he  was  defeated  with  great  loss  in  both 
officers  and  men.  The  depressing  effect  of  so  many  suc- 
cessive defeats  upon  Hood's  troops  is  shown  by  this  story. 
A  citizen  asked  one  of  Hood's  men  who  had  survived  the 
battle  at  Franklin,  and  was  marching  toward  Nashville, 
"How  many  men  have  you  in  your  army?" 

"About  enough  for  two  more  killings,"  came  the  re- 
ply. 

Results  developed  that  the  soldier,  discouraged  as  he 
seemed  to  be,  was  still  too  optimistic.  One  killing  was 
proved  sufficient  to  destroy  Hood's  whole  force  as  an 
army  and  send  its  disorganized  remnants  flying  through 
untold  hardships  back  across  the  Tennessee  River.  This 
last  "killing"  was  inflicted  on  the  15th  and  16th  of  Decem- 
ber by  Gen.  Thomas  before  Nashville,  to  which  city  Hood 
had  laid  siege.  It  was  a  reverse  so  severe  that  the  army 
was  ruined,  and  Hood  retired  in  disgrace  from  its  com- 
mand. 

As  soon  as  Hood  was  across  the  Tennessee  on  his 
way  to  Nashville,  Sherman  was  ready  for  his  march  from 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  375 

"Atlanta  to  the  Sea."  He  commenced  the  march  on  the 
16th  of  November,  and  entered  Savannah  (70)  three 
hundred  miles  away,  on  the  20th  of  December,  having 
practically  severed  the  Confederacy  again,  taken  and  de- 
stroyed a  hundred  million  dollar's  worth  of  stores  and 
supplies,  brought  in  thousands  of  negroes,  and  nearly 
destroyed  a  large  extent  of  country  as  a  source  of  sup- 
plies to  the  enemy's  army.  Here  ended  the  campaign  of 
1864  in  the  western  army. 

In  the  east  as  heretofore  stated,  Generals  Meade  and 
Butler  moved  on  the  offensive  at  the  same  time  that 
Sherman  advanced  from  Chattanooga.  Butler  sailed  up 
the  James  River  and  occupied  City  Point  (71)  as  ordered, 
but  failed  of  any  further  effective  work. 

General  Meade,  accompanied  by  General  Grant, 
crossed  the  Rapidan  River,  May  4th,  and  entered  the  so- 
called  "Wilderness."  This  was  an  undefined  stretch  of 
rough,  hilly  country,  lying  west  of  Fredericksburg  and 
near  Chancellorsville  (49,  67),  a  land  covered  by  woods, 
groves,  and  ravines.  Its  tangled  thickets  of  pine,  scrub 
oak,  and  cedar  were  so  dense  as  to  prevent  easy  passage 
and  to  obstruct  both  near  and  distant  vision. 

On  June  15th,  Grant's  army,  fighting  continually  and 
moving  by  its  left  flank,  reached  the  James  River  and  pre- 
pared to  cross.  Since  entering  the  "Wilderness"  May 
4th,  it  had  fought  six  bloody  battles,  four  in  the  "Wilder- 
ness," one  at  North  Anna,  and  a  most  costly  one  at  Cold 
Harbor,  near  the  Chickahominy  (44),  the  scene  of 
McClellan's  "Seven  Days  Battle"  in  1862. 

After  the  Cold  Harbor  engagement  Grant  came  to 
the  same  conclusion  that  McClellan  had  arrived  at  in  1862 


376  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

when  he  retired  to  Malvern  Hill :  that  the  proper  approach 
for  a  siege  of  Richmond  was  from  the  south.  Therefore 
he  crossed  the  river,  attempted  the  capture  of  Petersburg 
(75)  but  failed.  He  then  laid  siege  to  that  city  and  spent 
the  rest  of  the  season  attempting  to  push  the  left  of  his 
army  across  the  railroad  communications  south  of  Rich- 
mond. 

The  campaign  of  1864  produced  great  victories  for 
the  Union  cause,  and  ended  with  the  Confederacy  cut  into 
three  parts  as  shown  by  the  map.  Nearly  all  the  effective 
forces  of  the  South  were  in  the  northeast  section  under 
Lee  at  Richmond  and  Johnston  with  a  new  army  in  North 
Carolina. 

Sherman  with  his  army  was  in  the  south  of  this  sec- 
tion and  Grant  in  the  north,  and  it  seemed  certain  that 
when  these  two  forces  should  march  to  meet  in  the  fol- 
lowing spring  the  end  must  come. 

At  this  time  it  was  my  misfortune  to  be  compelled 
to  leave  my  company  and  my  place  in  the  battle  line.  The 
cause  of  this  change  illustrates  one  of  the  differences  of 
organizing  and  conducting  the  Civil  War  and  the  Great 
War,  and  is  one  of  the  many  reasons  why  the  former, 
though  a  greater  war,  so  far  as  we  were  concerned,  yet 
cost  in  dollars  and  cents  only  about  one-sixth  as  much  as 
the  latter.  General  Sherman  once  said,  "If  a  man  should 
be  needed  for  any  particular  work,  no  matter  how  tech- 
nical, he  could  always  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  army." 
This  was  as  true  in  the  Great  War  as  in  the  Civil  War, 
but  the  difference  was  in  the  way  such  men  were  handled 
when  found.  The  Civil  War  man  was  detailed  from  his 
company  for  the  work,  and  no  matter  how  important  it 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  377 

was  he  would  receive  only  the  pay  his  rank  in  the  line 
entitled  him.  At  one  time  I  displaced  a  civilian  who  was 
receiving  six  times  my  pay. 

In  the  Great  War  such  soldier  was  commissioned  and 
placed  on  staff  duty.  Many  civilians  were  also  commis- 
sioned on  this  staff  for  various  duties  not  connected  with 
the  line  of  battle,  and  the  Pullman  cars  throughout  the 
country  and  the  office  desks  at  Washington  are  scratched 
with  the  spurs  of  "cavalry  officers"  of  our  late  war  who 
dare  not  for  their  lives  mount  a  fractious  horse  and  who 
could  not  possibly  form  a  troop  of  cavalry  upon  any  line 
unless  it  be  at  a  pie-counter  or  along  a  refreshment  bar. 

When  I  joined  my  company  I  was  without  acquaint- 
ance and  had  no  pull  of  any  kind ;  I  expected  no  office, 
and  got  none.  Our  officers  elected  by  the  company  were 
all  professional  men,  probably  good  ones,  but  their  knowl- 
edge was  worthless  in  the  army.  When  our  company 
drew  their  horses,  these  men  who  had  spent  their  lives 
at  their  office  desks  were  lost,  but  I  came  into  my  king- 
dom. 

Anyone  who  has  read  my  "Passing  of  the  Indian" 
must  realize  that  I  was  almost  half-brother  to  a  horse, 
was  an  out-door  man  and  a  fairly  good  rider.  The  army 
tactics,  a  sealed  book  to  many,  were  open  to  me.  With  all 
these  advantages,  it  did  not  take  long  to  demonstrate  that 
I  could  do  more  with  the  raw  men  and  the  unbroken 
horses  than  the  commissioned  officers.  I  succeeded  so 
well  that  a  company  in  the  4th  Iowa  Cavalry,  seeing  my 
work,  off crcd  me  a  commission  with  them.  The  boys  of 
my  company  and  the  officers  of  both  company  and  regi- 
ment did  not  want  me  to  leave,  and  so  in  loyalty  I  re- 


378  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

mained  with  them.  They  did  the  best  they  could  for  me : 
they  made  me  a  first  sergeant  of  Company  I,  2nd  Iowa 
Cavalry. 

A  company  was  then  allowed  three  commissioned  of- 
ficers, a  captain  and  two  lieutenants.  In  our  company 
one  of  these  officers  was  habitually  "disabled  from  duty/' 
but  notwithstanding  a  court  martial  he  still  had  enough 
force,  personally  and  politically,  to  hold  his  commission 
whether  he  did  his  duty  or  not.  Another  officer  was  on 
"detached  service"  and  never,  except  for  a  few  days,  was 
with  the  company  during  the  war.  The  methods  of  the 
Great  War  would  have  made  short  work  of  that  tangle. 
The  court-martialled  officer  would  have  been  dismissed ; 
the  one  on  detached  service  would  have  been  transferred 
to  "staff  duty,"  and  that  would  have  made  two  vacancies 
for  commissions  in  my  company,  of  which  I  should  with- 
out doubt  have  received  one. 

It  takes  little  mathematics  to  figure  out  the  fact  that 
one  lieutenant  and  I  were  left  to  perform  all  the  duties 
of  four  men — three  commissioned  officers  and  the  first 
sergeant.  This  condition  was  a  money-saver  for  Uncl-e 
Sam,  but  I  did  not  then,  nor  do  I  yet,  fully  appreciate  its 
justice.  Of  this  four-fold  job,  despite  the  willingness 
of  the  lieutenant,  I  necessarily  had  to  perform  much  the 
larger  half;  it  would  not  have  been  proper  for  him  to 
attend  to  my  first  sergeant's  duties,  and  when  it  came 
to  the  officers'  duties  he  never  drilled  the  company  during 
the  period  of  my  service  with  it.  This  being  the 
case,  it  does  not  take  a  prophet  to  know  who  was  com- 
pelled to  handle  it  in  the  field  and  in  the  fight.  The  only 
order   I    ever   heard   the   captain   of   my   company   give 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  379 

while  under  fire  from  the  enemy  was,  "Dismount  and 
ohey  your  First  Sergeant."  This  condition  lasted  two  and 
a  half  years  through  camp,  and  march,  and  raid,  and  in 
twenty-seven  battles  and  skirmishes  that  are  certified  to 
on  my  discharge.  I  could  stand  the  physical  and  mental 
strain  no  longer ;  both  body  and  mind  were  giving  way 
and   I  resigned. 

Both  men  and  officers  refused  to  accept  my  resigna- 
tion. But  a  few  days  later,  when  the  boys  had  rolled  me 
up  in  a  blanket  and  carried  me  to  the  hospital,  and  the 
doctor  had  reported  upon  my  condition,  they  were  satis- 
fied I  had  done  the  proper  thing  and  permitted  me  to  fight 
for  my  life.  I  never  did  recover  from  the  effects  of  that 
service,  but  I  regained  my  health  sufficiently  to  accept  a 
staff  detail  to  the  head-quarters  of  the  Cavalry  Corps  of 
which  General  B.  H.  Grierson,  of  Grierson  raid  fame, 
was  commander. 

My  duties  then  were  essential  and  exacting,  both  in 
the  field  and  in  the  office,  and  under  World  War  condi- 
tions I  should  have  been  commissioned.  But  I  performed 
them  willingly  and  gladly  on  the  pay  of  my  rank,  and 
what  I  say  for  myself  I  can  speak  for  the  many  other 
men  I  knew  who  were  thus  "detached." 

Proof  that  my  work  in  the  regiment  was  appreciated 
came  when  there  was  finally  a  vacancy  in  the  commis- 
sioned officers  of  my  company.  The  officers  of  the  regi- 
ment heartily  endorsed  me  for  promotion  as  captain. 
Doubtless  T  should  have  received  such  commission  had  I 
not,  on  account  of  health  and  other  reasons,  stopped  the 
proceeding  myself.  I  wrote  Governor  Kirkwood  declin- 
ing the  position,  and  suggesting  that  the  Lieutenant  with 


38o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

whom  I  had  worked  so  long  be  commissioned.  My  letter 
solved  a  long  uncertainty,  the  lieutenant  received  the 
commission,  and  we  had  a  banquet  at  his  expense  and  in 
my  honor. 

With  the  cavalry  corps  staff  I  participated  in  the 
Sturgis  Raid,  that  tragic  campaign — for  its  size  the  most 
lamentable  movement  of  the  Civil  War.  It  started  from 
Memphis  June  first  for  the  express  purpose  of  whipping 
General  Forrest  who  was  stationed  near  Guntown,  Miss. 
Three  brigades  of  infantry — two  white  and  one  colored — 
and  two  brigades  of  cavalry  were  the  forces  employed — 
about  seventy-five  hundred  men.  General  W.  C.  Mc- 
Millan commanded  the  infantry;  General  B.  H.  Grierson, 
the  cavalry ;  and  General  Sturgis,  the  army. 

I  dislike  to  recall  the  horrors  of  that  campaign.  But 
it  is  little  understood,  has  never  been  correctly  told  to  the 
people,  and  some  writers  have  unfairly  laid  the  blame  of 
it  upon  General  Grierson.  Justice,  therefore,  as  well  as 
regard  for  the  truth,  compel  me  to  tell  what  I  know  of 
the  affair.  Circumstances  were  such  that  few  men  saw 
more  of  the  whole  conflict  than  I. 

On  the  8th  Sturgis  passed  Ripley,  about  eighty  miles 
southeast  of  Memphis,  and  camped  at  Stubbs'  farm 
fourteen  miles  beyond.  About  ten  o'clock  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  9th  the  cavalry,  having  marched  about  eleven 
miles  from  camp,  crossed  a  small  stream  and  came  to 
Brice's  cross-roads  where  we  struck  the  enemy  who  were 
awaiting  us  there  in  force.  General  Grierson  immediately 
went  to  the  cross-roads  and  took  command  at  the  front. 
He  at  once  reported  the  condition  to  General  Sturgis, 
and  expressed  his  doubts  of  the  desirability  of  fighting  in 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  381 

such  an  unfavorable  position,  with  little  space  to  move 
troops  and  a  muddy  stream  directly  in  the  rear. 

Sturgis,  in  place  of  coming  to  the  front  and  viewing 
the  ground,  or  sending  a  staff  officer  to  do  it  for  him, 
disregarded  Grierson's  better  judgment  and  gave  the 
order,  "Hold  the  cross-roads  at  all  hazards."  Grierson 
did  not,  as  has  been  charged,  urge  Sturgis  to  advance  to 
this  point — he  did  the  very  reverse.  But  when  he  was 
ordered  to  hold  the  cross-roads  he  did  write  that  he  could 
not  hold  them  long  against  Forrest's  combined  forces  of 
cavalry,  infantry,  and  artillery,  and  if  they  must  be  held 
the  infantry  should  be  brought  up  soon.  These  facts  I 
am  certain  of  because  it  was  my  duty  to  know  and  record 
all  such  correspondence. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  when  the  cavalry  went  into  line  of 
battle  and  Grierson  reported  to  Sturgis.  It  was  a  hot  day. 
The  sun  beat  down  with  almost  tropic  fierceness  on  the 
soft,  sandy  road  between  the  tall  pine  trees.  Over  this 
road  and  under  these  conditions  Sturgis  pushed  his  men 
to. the  last  point  of  endurance.  I  sat  on  my  horse  at  the 
forks  of  the  road  and  saw  them  go  into  the  fight  pant- 
ing from  the  heat  and  fatigue,  much  better  subjects  for 
hospital  treatment  than  for  fighting  a  battle. 

In  this  condition  these  men  went  into  the  fight  regi- 
ment by  regiment,  and  regiment  by  regiment  they  were 
defeated  until  about  sundown,  when  the  whole  battle  line 
gave  way  and  demoralization  of  the  infantry  was  com- 
plete. The  result  was  no  reflection  on  the  bravery  of  the 
men  who  were  thus  pushed  into  the  fight;  they  were  so 
handled  that  they  never  had  a  chance  to  win ;  defeat  was  a 
foregone  conclusion. 


382  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

The  cavalry  had  been  withdrawn  from  the  front  and 
mounted  when  the  infantry  arrived,  and  were  still  in 
fighting  condition.  But  one  brigade  was  soon  lost  from 
service  where  needed,  and  that  by  Sturgis's  command. 
I  know  this  because  I  heard  him  give  the  order.  The 
division  and  brigade  commanders  had  gathered  near  and 
behind  the  stream  I  spoke  of,  the  defeated  army  was 
crowding  past,  no  longer  an  army  but  a  formless  mob.  An 
infantry  colonel  rode  in  haste  to  General  Sturgis  and 
anxiously  pleaded,  "General,  we  are  holding  the  'Johnnies' 
on  the  creek.  Give  us  ammunition  and  we  will  whip  them 
yet." 

Sturgis  replied,  "I  don't  know  anything  about  the 
ammunition."  Then  turning  to  Colonel  Warring, 
commander  of  the  First  Brigade  of  cavalry,  the  only 
organization  that  had  not  been  more  or  less  broken,  he 
said,  "Colonel  Warring,  take  your  brigade  and  make  a 
hole  to  Memphis."  With  this  brigade  General  Sturgis 
retired  from  the  field,  and  General  Grierson  took  com- 
mand. This  left  only'  one  brigade  of  cavalry  to  protect 
from  the  enemy  what  was  left  of  five  thousand  infantry. 
We  were  enough  to  whip  any  and  all  cavalry  that  the 
Confederates  then  had,  but  when  their  infantry  or  artil- 
lery came  up  in  force  we  had  to  retire.  Conditions  re- 
solved themselves  into  this  proposition :  as  long  as  our 
troops  kept  moving  at  a  marching  gait  they  could  be 
protected,  but  any  who  stopped  or  who  gave  out  from 
wounds  or  fatigue  were  left  to  the  mercy  of  an  enraged 
enemy. 

Pause  here  a  moment  and  try  to  realize  what  the  men 
of  that  army  endured — I  mean  the  infantry.  We  of  the 
cavalry  had  no  jolly  picnic,  but  it  is  the  foot  soldiers  to 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  3S3 

whom  I  refer.  At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  carrying 
their  full  marching  load,  they  were  ordered  to  ''Double 
quick,  March!"  in  deep  sand,  under  a  blazing  sun  and 
through  a  breathless  canyon  edged  by  tall  pines.  This 
killing  pace,  as  often  as  possible,  was  kept  up  until  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when,  in  an  almost  fainting 
condition,  those  who  had  not  already  fallen  from  exhaus- 
tion, were  pushed  into  a  fierce  engagement.  They  fought 
from  that  time  until  sunset  a  losing  battle. 

A  losing  battle !  How  many  know  or  can  realize  what 
that  means?  Even  a  victorious  fight  demands  all  of  life's 
energies.  The  excitement,  the  risk  of  life  and  limb,  the 
thirst-provoking  and  stifling  gunpowder  fumes,  the  de- 
pending uncertainties,  all  make  drafts  upon  the  soldier 
that  even  the  enthusiasm  and  joy  of  victory  cannot  re- 
place. But  when  to  that  is  added  the  depression  of  defeat, 
it  would  seem  impossible  that  those  soldiers  at  night 
could  even  move  themselves  for  any  purpose. 

Had  it  not  been  a  case  of  life  or  death  these  men  would 
not  have  moved,  but  most  wonderful  is  the  reserve  force 
nature  has  given  us  which  can  be  called  upon  in  necessity. 
These  men  made  drafts  upon  that  force  and  traveled  all 
that  night — twenty-five  miles  to  Ripley ;  they  marched,  or 
walked,  or  crawled  all  the  next  day  and  all  the  next  night. 
In  some  way  they  kept  moving;  with  insufficient  food, 
with  water  at  uncertain  and  too  infrequent  intervals,  with 
supposed  certain  death  behind  and  promised  life  in  front, 
many  of  them  kept  going,  somehow,  nearly  one  hundred 
miles,  before  reaching  rest,  rations,  and  safety. 

Over  the  scenes  of  that  hundred  miles  of  horrors  I 
draw  a  veil,  except  as  to  one  particular  which  must  be 


384  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

answered,  both  for  the  Fort  Pillow  event  and  the  Sturgis 
disgrace.  Were  our  soldiers,  white  and  black,  needlessly 
killed? 

After  a  lapse  of  over  half  a  century,  "With  charity 
for  all  and  with  malice  toward  none,"  I  am  compelled  to 
admit  what  the  Confederates  themselves  who  knew  did 
not  deny:  they  were  so  killed.  Even  General  R.  E.  Lee 
does  not  deny  it  regarding  Fort  Pillow,  and  says,  "I  assert 
that  our  officers  endeavored  to  prevent  the  effusion  of 
blood,  and  as  evidence  of  this  I  refer  you  to  the  fact  that 
both  white  and  colored  prisoners  were  taken  and  are  now 
in  our  hands."  This  last  statement  is  true,  but  look  at 
the  figures.  As  nearly  as  the  facts  can  be  ascertained, 
there  were  at  Fort  Pillow  five  hundred  soldiers  and 
refugees  killed  or  driven  into  the  river  and  drowned,  and 
only  about  two  hundred,  including  the  wounded,  taken 
prisoners.  Those  simple  figures  prove  conclusively  need- 
less slaughter.  In  justice  to  the  Confederates  we  must 
consider  that  we  had  just  armed  a  servile  race,  and  they 
thought  these  black  soldiers  would,  in  revenge  for  cen- 
turies of  slavery,  murder  and  violate  their  people  with- 
out mercy — a  fear  that  proved  absolutely  groundless. 
They  were  brought  up  as  feudists  to  believe  that  it  was 
right  to  kill  enemy  or  friend  on  sufficient  provocation. 
They  considered  our  act  as  sufficient  provocation.  We 
were  notified,  unofficially,  that  no  negro  soldiers  or  white 
men  in  company  with  negro  soldiers  would  be  taken 
prisoners.  I  dare  not  ask  myself  what  I  would  have 
done,  with  their  education  and  their  supposed  cause  for 
revenge;  an  honest  reply  might  lead  to  an  unpleasant 
conclusion.  Let  Him  who  alone  "doeth  all  things  well" 
the  verdict  find. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  385 

For  the  cavalry  I  wish  to  tell  of  the  thrilling  cam- 
paign of  Nashville,  because  its  bare  narrative  so  forcibly 
defines  the  duties  and  work  of  the  cavalry  arm  of  service 
before  and  during  the  Civil  War — duties  now  lost  to  them 
forever. 

When  Hood  crossed  the  Tennessee  River  on  his 
march  to  Nashville,  my  regiment  with  others  formed  the 
5th  Division  Cavalry  Corps  M.  D.  M.,  under  command  of 
my  old  Colonel  Edward  Hatch.  This  division  met  Hood 
at  that  river  and  fought  his  advance  mile  by  mile  for 
over  a  hundred  miles  until  he  laid  siege  to  the  city. 

The  cavalry  was  then  "the  eye  of  the  army"  and  its 
duty  was,  at  all  times  to  know  just  where  the  enemy's 
army  was  and,  so  far  as  possible,  its  strength,  component 
parts,  and  numbers.  This  could  be  done  only  by  fighting 
it  hard  enough  to  compel  a  display  of  forces.  It  was  our 
daily  work  to  fight  and  fall  back,  fight  and  fall  back,  until 
such  time  as  General  Thomas,  our  commander,  was  ready 
to  try  final  conclusions  in  one  great  battle.  Some  of  these 
conflicts  were  small,  but  some,  like  the  engagement  of 
Franklin,  were  severe;  and  it  was  not  an  unusual  thing 
for  regiments  to  lose  more  men  in  the  little  fights  than  in 
a  big  battle. 

Our  division  met  Hood's  army  on  the  6th  day  of 
November  and  fought  it  daily  until  the  2nd  day  of  De- 
cember, when  it  arrived  in  the  vicinity  of  Nashville  and 
settled  down  to  a  siege  of  that  city.  There  our  men  were 
given  ten  days  of  rest  to  prepare  for  the  battle  at  that 
place.  Let  a  few  facts  give  some  idea  of  the  isolation  of 
this  division  and  of  the  suffering  of  its  men  and  horses. 
When  it  reached  Columbus  it  received  its  first  mail  for 


386  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

sixty-five  days.  An  inspection  of  horses  showed  that  in 
the  Second  Iowa  Cavalry,  out  of  four  hundred  examined, 
only  sixty-five  were  fit  for  service,  all  the  rest,  from 
excessive  service,  lack  of  feed,  and  wading  through 
Tennessee  mud,  were  worthless  for  present  needs.  The 
men  were  little  better.  They  did  not  see  their  tents  or 
knapsacks  between  the  months  of  September  and  Decem- 
ber; their  beds  had  been  the  mud  and  snow  of  the  Ten- 
nessee hills,  their  blankets  and  the  sky  their  only  cover- 
ing of  nights;  while  hard  riding  and  uncertain  rations, 
with  plenty  of  fighting,  had  been  their  fare  all  these  days. 

When  the  Battle  of  Nashville  took  place  on  the  15th 
of  December,  the  Fifth  Division — rested,  mounted,  and 
re-clothed — was  ready  to  make  a  new  record  for  the 
cavalry  service.  It  was  stationed  on  the  right  of  the  Fed- 
eral line.  It  was  dismounted,  and  the  horses  had  been 
sent  to  the  rear.  The  men  were  lying  on  the  ground,  and 
a  fort  of  the  enemy  upon  a  hill  in  front  was  shelling  them. 
To  lie  still  and  receive  the  enemy's  fire  with  no  chance  to 
reply  will  test  the  nerve  of  any  soldier.  Consequently 
when  General  Hatch  rode  along  the  line  and  said,  "Boys, 
let's  go  up  and  take  that  fort,"  there  was  a  cheer  of  ap- 
proval, and  they  rushed  and  captured  it.  Not  only  did 
they  capture  this  fort  but  when,  after  entering  they  found 
that  it  was  enfiladed  by  a  second  one,  and  that  they  must 
either  surrender  the  one  they  had  captured  or  go  on  and 
take  the  second,  they  delayed  not  a  moment  in  their  choice, 
but  went  on  and  took  the  second  fort  likewise. 

So  unprecedented  was  this  success  of  ours  that  when 
the  capture  of  the  first  fort  was  reported  to  General 
1  nomas  he  replied,  "Tut,  tut,  impossible,  impossible,  sir ! 
Such  a  thing  as  cavalrymen  carrying  forts  by  assault  has 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  387 

never  been  heard  of."  Seeing  is  believing,  and  the  General 
rode  to  the  right  of  his  line  in  time  to  witness  with  his 
own  eyes  our  capture  of  the  second  fortification. 

Just  before  the  charge  upon  the  second  fort  was  made, 
an  incident  occurred  that  demonstrates  the  Civil  War 
soldier's  determination  to  perform  his  assigned  duty 
despite  interference  from  any  source.  The  capture  of  the 
first  fort,  and  the  pursuit  and  gathering  in  of  the  prison- 
ers, had  scattered  the  men  of  the  regiment  badly.  As  it 
was  necessary  to  gather  them,  Colonel  Horton,  to  attract 
their  attention,  took  the  flag  from  the  color  bearer, 
Sergeant  John  F.  Hartman,  and  rode  among  them  calling, 
"Fall  in,  boys,  fall  in!" 

Hartman  stood  for  a  moment  dazed,  then  risking 
court-martial  and  disgrace,  he  seized  the  Colonel's  horse 
by  the  bits  and  demanded,  "Colonel  Horton,  that  flag  is 
mine  until  I  disgrace  it.  Give  it  back  to  me.  I'll  carry  it 
as  far  as  you  dare  to." 

The  Colonel  was  a  gentleman,  he  saw  his  mistake,  and 
handed  the  flag  back  saying,  "I  know  you  will,  Sergeant, 
and  a  great  deal  farther."  Hartman  carried  his  flag  into 
the  second  fort,  planted  it  there  with  his  dying  hand  and, 
when  found,  still  held  it  with  his  last  death  grip. 

That  day  the  boys  of  our  division  seemed  to  acquire 
the  habit  of  capturing  cannon,  for  during  the  battle  of 
Nashville  and  the  long  pursuit  of  Hoods'  broken  army 
afterward  the  Confederates  never  discharged  a  piece  of 
artillery  at  them  that  our  boys  did  not  raise  a  shout,  make 
a  charge,  and  capture  it. 

It  was  during  this  pursuit  that  two  men  of  my  com- 
pany, Ben  rlammet  and  Horace  Bennet,  were  captured  by 


388  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  Confederates  and  were  promptly  started  on  the  way  to 
a  rebel  prison.  These  boys  knew  something  about  the  bed 
and  board  the  South  was  furnishing  guests  of  their  varie- 
ty, and  concluded  they  would  not  be  prisoners  but  would 
either  escape  or  die  in  the  attempt.  The  Confederates  had 
so  many  captives  they  could  not  well  find  buildings  to 
put  them  in  at  night,  and  so  were  compelled  to  let  them 
lie  upon  the  ground  in  the  open  fields.  The  captured  men 
were  required  to  lie  as  closely  together  as  possible,  and 
guards,  who  walked  their  beats  all  night  long,  were  placed 
around  them. 

The  train  of  captives  and  guards  proceeded  toward 
the  south  until  it  came  to  a  part  of  the  country  through 
which  our  regiment  had  scouted  and  fought  and  which 
Hammet  and  Bennett  both  knew.  They  here  decided  that 
now  or  never  was  the  time  to  make  their  dash  for  liberty 
or  death.  That  night  they  laid  their  blankets  down  as 
close  to  the  guard  line  as  possible,  wrapped  themselves 
up,  and  pretended  deep  sleep. 

About  midnight,  when  everything  had  quieted  down, 
they  waited  until  the  guard  of  their  part  of  the  line  ap- 
proached their  location  and  then,  as  he  was  passing,  they 
sprang  to  their  feet,  threw  their  arms  around  him,  gun 
and  all,  and  despite  the  shouts,  commands,  and  rifle  shots 
of  the  other  guards,  who  dared  not  leave  their  beats  or, 
on  account  of  their  kidnapped  comrade,  dared  not  shoot 
to  kill,  they  carried  him  out  of  sight  and  range  of  camp 
and  there  left  him — in  what  condition  "deponent  saith 
not."  By  hiding  days  and  traveling  nights,  guided  and 
provisioned  by  the  negroes,  they  reached  the  Tennessee 
River,  hailed  a  boat,  and  finally  returned  safely  to  the 
company. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  389 

RECAPITULATION  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1864 
(See  map,  pages  332-333) 

Objectives 

East  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains : 

Lee's  army  and  the  Confederate  capitol,  its  base  of 
supplies,  Richmond,  Virginia. 

West  of  the  Alleghanies  : 

Johnston's  army  and  its  base  of  supplies  at  Atlanta, 
Georgia. 

The  execution  of  the  campaign  for  the  first  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  General  Meade  under  personal  direction 
of  General  Grant. 

That  of  the  last  to  General  Sherman  under  more  gen- 
eral direction  from  the  same  source. 

For  the  first  time,  all  the  armies  moved  at  one  time, 
under  one  direction  (Grant's),  for  one  general  purpose. 

Decisive  Battles 

East  of  the  Alleghanies : 

Grant's  series  of  battles  in  the  Wilderness,  North 
Anna,  Cold  Harbor,  Petersburg. 

West  of  Alleghanies : 

Sherman's  series  of  battles  from  Dalton  to  Atlanta, 
Savannah ;  Nashville. 

Findings 

East  of  the  Alleghanies : 

The  capture  of  the  base  of  supplies,  Richmond,  not  at- 
tained, but  General  Lee  was  so  closely  besieged  there  that 
he  could  not  detach  troops  against  Sherman. 


390  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

West  of  the  Alleghanies : 

Objective  attained. 

Johnston's  base  of  supplies,  Atlanta,  captured,  his 
army  under  General  Hood  destroyed,  and  the  Confed- 
eracy east  of  the  Mississippi  River  practically  cut  into 
two  sections  by  the  march  from  "Atlanta  to  the  Sea." 

Section  VI.   The  Campaign  of  1865  and  Closing  Events 

The  contemplated  movements  for  this  year  were  but 
continuations  of  the  plan  made  in  the  spring  of  1864, 
namely :  that  General  Sherman  should  destroy  Johnston's 
army  at  Dalton,  Georgia ;  that  General  Meade,  under 
General  Grant's  supervision,  should  destroy  General  Lee's 
army  at  Richmond,  Virginia ;  and  that  the  one  who  first 
succeeded  in  attaining  his  objective  should  march  to  the 
assistance  of  the  other. 

General  Sherman  was  first  to  perform  his  task.  The 
army  of  General  Johnston,  eventually  under  General 
Hood,  had  been  completely  destroyed,  and  in  conformity 
to  the  preconceived  and  agreed  plan,  General  Sherman 
had  already  marched  three  hundred  miles  "from  Atlanta 
to  the  sea,"  and  now  the  finishing  strokes  of  the  war  came. 

In  the  latter  part  of  January,  Sherman  left  Savannah 
upon  what  proved  to  be  the  last  long  offensive  march  of 
the  war.  He  crossed  the  Salkehatichie  River  in  face  of 
the  enemy  on  the  3rd  of  February,  struck  and  defeated 
the  Confederates  at  Orangeburg  (76),  captured  Columbia 
(yy)  on  the  17th,  marched  across  the  state  line  of  North 
Carolina  on  March  8th,  left  Fayetteville  (78)  for  Golds- 
boro  on  the  15th,  foiled  Johnston's  attempt  to  destroy  his 
army  in  detail  at  Bentonville  on  the  21st,   and  reached 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  391 

Goldsboro  (79)  on  the  23rd.  He  then  formed  a  junction 
with  Schofield  and  Terry,  who,  by  his  orders,  had 
marched  up  from  Wilmington   (73). 

Sherman's  army,  now  all  united,  had  two  direct  lines 
of  railroad  to  the  ocean,  and  was  ready  to  communicate 
and  co-operate  with  Grant  at  Petersburg  (75).  There- 
fore Sherman  on  the  27th  went  to  Grant's  headquarters 
at  City  Point  (71)  to  consult  personally  with  him  regard- 
ing the  final  movements  to  destroy  the  Confederate 
armies. 

At  this  time  General  Sherman  said:  "But  one  move 
was  left  to  Lee  on  the  chess  board  of  war:  make  a  junc- 
tion with  Johnston  in  North  Carolina,  fall  upon  and  de- 
stroy me,  if  possible — a  fate  I  did  not  apprehend ;  then 
turn  on  Grant,  sure  to  be  in  close  pursuit,  and  defeat 
him."  This  move,  from  subsequent  events  seemed  to  have 
been  Lee's  intention.  He  communicated  it  to  President 
Davis,  who  had  agreed  that  such  movement  should  be 
made  as  soon  as  the  ground  settled  and  troops  could  pos- 
sibly be  moved  in  the  spring. 

But  General  Grant  did  not  wait  until  troops  could  be 
reasonably  marched.  He  started  Meade's  army  moving 
by  its  left  flank  on  the  29th  day  of  March  when  the  roads 
were  impassable  to  any  troops  but  those  that  were  in  the 
lightest  marching  order  and  of  the  most  determined  dis- 
position. 

Notwithstanding  the  adverse  opinions  of  subordinates, 
he  marched  his  men  through  mud  and  rain  at  a  time  of 
which  General  Horace  Porter  said :  "The  Country  was 
densely  wooded  and  the  ground  swampy.  By  evening 
of  the  30th  whole  fields  had  become  beds  of  quicksand 


392  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

in  which  horses  sank  to  their  bellies,  wagons  threatening 
to  disappear  altogether,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  bottom 
had  fallen  out  of  the  roads.  The  roads  had  become  sheets 
of  water  and  it  looked  as  if  the  saving  of  the  army  would 
require  the  services,  not  of  a  Grant,  but  of  a  Noah. 
Soldiers  would  call  out  to  officers  as  they  rode  along,  "I 
say!  when  are  the  gunboats  coming  up?" 

Under  these  unfavorable  conditions  General  Sheridan 
with  the  cavalry  and  one  corps  of  infantry,  moved  south- 
west to  Dinwiddie  Court  House  on  the  31st,  there  threat- 
ening the  Richmond  and  Danville  railroad,  the  Confeder- 
ates' principal  source  of  supplies.  General  Lee  imme- 
diately detached  a  large  part  of  his  army  to  drive  Sheri- 
dan and  his  forces  away.  This  brought  on  the  fierce 
battle  of  Five  Forks  on  the  1st  and  2nd  days  of  April. 
Sheridan  was  not  driven  away,  but  Lee's  men  were  so 
badly  defeated  he  was  forced  to  conclude  that  the  Con- 
federates could  no  longer  hold  Richmond  and  Petersburg. 
On  the  morning  of  the  2nd,  therefore,  he  notified  Presi- 
dent Davis,  who  immediately  left  the  church  services, 
where  the  message  found  him,  and  commenced  prepar- 
ing for  precipitate  flight. 

Now  began  a  race  between  General  Lee's  and  General 
Grant's  armies  to  determine  which  could  first  reach 
Burkeville  (81),  the  junction  of  the  Danville  and  South- 
side  railroads,  the  key  to  direct  communication  between 
General  Lee's  army  in  Virginia  and  General  Johnston's 
army  in  North  Carolina.  The  indefatigable  Sheridan 
with  his  Union  forces  was  first  there,  and  the  battle  of 
Sailor's  Creek  on  April  6th,  in  which  General  Ewell  and 
his  whole  corps  was  captured,  demonstrated  our  ability  to 
retain  the  key. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  393 

This  success  of  the  Union  army  compelled  Lee  to 
change  the  direction  of  his  retreat  toward  his  secondary 
base  of  supplies,  Lynchburg,  and  the  race  continued  along 
the  Southside  Railroad  toward  that  objective. 

Here  again  Sheridan  was  the  winner.  He  first  reached 
Appomattox  Station  (82),  captured  the  supplies  Lee  had 
ordered  there  to  feed  his  now  famishing  men,  then  formed 
a  line  of  cavalry  and  infantry  across  Lee's  line  of  retreat, 
so  strong  that  the  Confederate  forces  made  no  serious 
attempt  to  break  it  when  they  reached  it  on  the  morning 
of  April  9th,   1865. 

Then  the  end  came.  In  McLean's  cottage  at  Appo- 
mattox Court  House,  Lee  surrendered.  There  and  then 
his  officers  and  men  were  paroled  on  liberal  terms  that 
allowed  all  to  return  to  their  homes  "not  to  be  disturbed 
by  the  United  States  authorities  so  long  as  they  observed 
their  paroles  and  the  laws  in  force  where  they  resided." 

Johnston's  army  on  the  26th  surrendered  to  Sherman 
at  Raleigh,  North  Carolina,  on  the  same  terms.  Other 
commanders  in  various  parts  of  the  now  re-established 
Union  also  followed  the  example  of  their  illustrious 
leaders  as  rapidly  as  the  news  reached  them  and 

THE  WAR  WAS  OVER. 

The  wave  of  rejoicing  that  swept  the  North  at  this 
culmination  is  impossible  to  describe.  Tliose  who  par- 
ticipated in  the  celebration  of  the  Armistice  at  the  close 
of  the  Great  War  can  imagine  something  of  what  it  might 
have  been  were  this  last  demonstration  multiplied  by  the 
ratio  of  the  importance  of  the  two  events.  The  Civil  War 
lasted  twice  as  long  as  the  Great  War.  Relatively,  to  the 
country  engaged  in  it,  the   cost,   in   endeavor,  in  heart 


394  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

distress,  in  destruction  of  property,  and  in  loss  of  life 
was  nine  times  as  great  in  the  former  as  in  the  latter,  and 
the  resulting  greater  benefits  of  the  struggle  to  our  na- 
tion's present  standing  and  future  progress  were  beyond 
comparison.  Figure  these  facts  out  and  then  imagine,  if 
you  can,  the  outburst  of  enthusiasm  that  swept  the  North 
like  a  cyclone  when  the  telegraph  wires  clicked  out,  "Lee 
has  surrendered." 

After  the  surrender  of  Appomattox  my  regiment  was 
stationed  at  Selma,  Alabama,  performing  patrol  and  re- 
construction work  until  the  following  September.  Here 
we  met  the  Confederate  boys  who,  worn-out,  tired,  and 
dejected,  were  coming  to  a  none  too  cordial  welcome  at 
their  homes.  The  people  of  that  part  of  the  South  had 
suffered  comparatively  little  from  the  war.  They  had 
been  told  continuously  that  their  troops  were  victorious 
over  the  North.  They  thought  the  surrender  was  un- 
called-for, that  their  soldiers  should  have  fought  longer, 
and  they  treated  them  as  slackers.  Later  they  knew  better 
and  appreciated  the  services  of  their  men  at  their  true 
worth;  but  there,  just  after  the  surrender,  I  believe  that 
we,  the  "Yanks,"  were  the  best  friends  the  returning  Con- 
federate soldiers  in  that  city  had.  We  knew  and  appre- 
ciated so  well  what  they  had  done  that  we  nearly  im- 
poverished ourselves  helping  them  on  their  way  home. 

Almost  a  generation  after  tfie  war  closed  a  letter  came 
from  Mobile,  Alabama,  to  the  secretary  of  our  regi- 
mental organization.  The  writer  was  an  ex-confederate 
soldier  who  wanted  to  send  the  best  carriage  that  he  had 
in  his  shop  to  that  member  of  the  Second  Iowa  Cavalry 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  395 

who  furnished  him  a  horse  and  saddle  at  Selma,  Alabama, 
and  helped  him  on  his  way  home  when  he  had  become 
completely  exhausted. 

This  circumstance  was  not  exceptional,  it  was  general, 
almost  universal.  The  friendship  which  grew  up  between 
the  "Yanks"  and  "Johnnies"  who  fought  each  other  dur- 
ing our  Civil  War  was  a  most  strange  thing,  and  the  more 
frequent  and  closely  contested  their  conflicts  had  been,  if 
square  and  honest,  the  warmer  and  closer  that  friendship 
was. 

No  better  example  of  this  exists  than  that  of  my  regi- 
ment, and  the  Second  Missouri  Confederate  Cavalry. 
They  were  as  well  armed  and  disciplined  as  we,  and  no 
matter  how  much  odds  in  numbers  or  position  we  were 
willing  to  assume  with  the  other  Confederate  Cavalry 
regiments,  when  we  met  that  one  body  of  men  we  could 
not  afford  to  give  one  single  advantage  in  either  numbers 
or  conditions.  When  we  met,  which  was  quite  often, 
chance  or  the  "God  of  Battle"  had  to  decide  the  issue  of 
the  clash.  The  result  was  mutual  respect  and  warm 
friendship.  If  we  made  one  of  them  prisoner,  the  best 
that  we  had  in  camp  was  not  too  good  for  him ;  and  if 
they  caught  one  of  us,  we  received  the  same  treatment 
from  them.  Today  I  would  travel  farther  to  meet  a  Second 
Missouri  man  than  for  any  other  person  in  the  world 
outside  my  own  family  or  regiment. 

This  friendship  between  the  old  soldiers  of  the  North 
and  the  South  did  more  to  bridge  the  chasm  that  separated 
the  two  sections  than  any  other  influence  then  or  now 
extant.  Civilians  upon  both  sides  could  not  see  us  veter- 
ans fraternizing  so  fully  as  we  always  did,  without  modi- 


396  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

fying  the  prejudices  and  resentments  that  a  life-time  of 
misinformation  and  misunderstanding  may  have  fixed 
upon  them. 

Some  time  after  the  war  when  I  told  the  boys  of  my 
Grand  Army  Post  that  I  was  going  south  they  said,  "You 
will  have  to  take  the  Grand  Army  button  off  your  coat 
when  you  get  there." 

"No,  I  will  not,"  I  replied.  "For  two  reasons  I  decline 
to  do  it.  First,  I  will  not  take  it  off  for  any  person  or 
circumstance  whatever,  and  second,  I  think  I  know  those 
"Johnnies"  well  enough  to  understand  they  will  think  bet- 
ter of  me  if  I  wear  it  than  if  I  should  take  it  off  and  put 
it  in  my  coat  pocket."  I  soon  happened  to  be  in  Mobile, 
Alabama,  when  the  Confederate  camps  of  the  state  had 
their  reunion  there.  I  thought  it  would  be  a  good  chance 
to  try  the  effect  of  my  G.  A.  R.  button. 

I  went  to  their  place  of  meeting.  An  old  gentleman 
met  me  with  extended  hand,  saying,  "Are  you  an  old 
soldier?"  I  answered,  "Yes,  I  served  over  four  years,  but 
in  the  Northern  army.    I  am  a  'Yank'." 

"We  are  just  as  glad  to  see  you,"  he  replied.  "Every- 
thing we  have  is  yours."  I  went  to  their  place  of  meeting. 
A  musket-armed  sentinel  met  me  with  "Arms  apart,"  and 
challenged,  "Are  you  a  delegate?" 

"No,  I  am  not,"  I  said,  "I  am  an  old  Yankee  soldier." 

"Pass  in,"  he  answered. 

I  seated  myself  in  the  first  row  of  the  dress  circle,  but 
soon  found  I  was  surounded  by  delegates,  so  reaching  for 
my  hat  I  said  to  those  around  me,  "I  guess  I  will  move 
back.  I  am  not  a  delegate.  I  am  not  even  a  Confederate. 
I  am  a  Yankee  soldier." 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  397 

Immediately  several  hands  hit  my  back  in  friendly 
salutation  and  unanimous  orders  given  to  me.  "Sit  down, 
we  have  got  you  prisoner  now  if  we  never  had  you  be- 
fore." Needless  to  say  I  stayed  where  I  was,  and  was 
never  better  used  in  my  life. 

I  wish  I  commanded  words  fit  to  portray  a  scene  of 
comradeship  that  I  saw  in  Mobile  on  one  of  the  Confed- 
erate Decoration  Days.  After  decorating  the  graves  of 
the  Confederate  dead  the  whole  long  column  of  Confed- 
erate veterans,  state  militia,  school  cadets,  and  citizens 
marched  to  our  National  Cemetery;  there  they  halted, 
saluted,  and  a  speaker  of  them,  and  for  them,  presented 
to  its  superintendent  a  beautiful  floral  emblem,  symboli- 
cally to  decorate  the  graves  of  the  Northern  soldiers  there 
buried.  It  was  a  sympathetic  act  gallantly  performed, 
and  one  that  I  believe  never  did  occur  and  never  could 
occur  in  any  land  save  ours.  I  was  then  standing  by  the 
superintendent  and  noticed  the  captain  of  the  Mobile  Con- 
federate Camp  motion  to  his  adjutant;  soon  two  grey 
uniformed  ex-"Johnnies"  stepped  out  of  their  ranks  and 
captured  me,  a  willing  prisoner  to  assist  them  in  com- 
pleting the  duties  of  the  day. 

There  are  no  men  in  the  world  more  loyal  to. the  "Stars 
and  Stripes"  than  those  who  fought  hardest  to  separate 
themselves  from  it.  I  have  talked  with  hundreds  of  old 
Confederates  in  every  state  of  the  Union  and  managed 
to  work  into  our  conversation  this  question  or  its  equal : 
"Now,  'Johnny,'  you  have  had  about  a  half  century  to 
test  the  question,  and  what  do  you  really  think?  Would 
it  have  been  as  well  if  you  had  succeeded,  or  is  it  better  as 
it  is  now?"    Think  what  it  must  mean  to  that  man  if  he 


398  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

answers  in  the  way  I  would  have  him.  It  means  that 
Jefferson  Davis,  and  Robert  E.  Lee,  and  Stonewall  Jack- 
son, and  many  other  men  whom  he  adores  as  we  do 
Abraham  Lincoln,  were  wrong;  it  means  that  all  his  com- 
rades who  were  killed,  died  in  vain;  and  it  means  that  his 
own  service  and  suffering  and  trials  went  for  nothing. 
Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  I  have  not  had  a  single  one  who 
refused  to  answer,  and  every  one  cordially  said,  "It  is 
better  as  it  now  is."  Truly,  there  is  no  North,  no  South, 
no  East,  nor  no  West.  We  are  one  people  in  everything 
except  sectional  politics,  and  may  God  hasten  the  day 
when  that  division,  like  others  that  have  vanished,  shall 
be,  like  them,  known  no  more. 

RECAPITULATION  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1865 

(See  map,  pages  332-333) 
Objective 

East  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains  : 

At  the  commencement  of  the  1864  campaign  it  was 
understood  between  Generals  Sherman  and  Grant  that  the 
one  who  first  attained  his  1864  objective  should  march  to 
the  other's  assistance. 

Pursuant  to  this  plan,  after  Sherman  had  captured 
Atlanta  and  dispersed  Johnston's  army,  he  had  marched 
his  forces  into  the  East,  and  both  Grant's  and  Sherman's 
Sole  Objective  for  1865  was  the  destruction  of  the  Con- 
federate armies  and  capture  of  Richmond. 

West  of  the  Alleghanies : 

Nothing  of  importance. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  399 

Decisive  Engagements  and  Events 

East  of  the  Alleghanies : 

Fort  Fisher,  Sherman's  march  from  Savannah  to 
Goldsboro;  Petersburg. 

The  series  of  battles  caused  by  Grant's  army  moving 
by  its  left  flank  and  cutting  off  communication  with 
Johnston's  army. 

Capture  of  Lee's  army  at  Appomattox. 

Findings 

Both  East  and  West: 

The  surrender  of  the  Confederate  forces  wherever 
they  were  found. 

Peace  for  the  whole  country. 


4oo  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  SPANISH-AMERICAN  WAR 

Section  I.    Its  Commencement  and  Causes 

During  the  last  decade  of  the  last  century  our  next- 
door  neighbor  and  closest  commercial  friend,  Cuba,  was 
engaged  in  a  deadly,  almost  despairingly  desperate,  revolt 
against  the  demoralizing  and  impoverishing  tyranny  of 
Spain.  i 

Few  persons  outside  of  Cuba  realize  the  courage  and 
valor  the  people  of  that  island  exhibited,  the  sufferings 
they  endured,  or  the  horrors  they  survived.  During  the 
Santiago  campaign  circumstances  were  such  that  the 
Cuban  forces  did  no  fighting  in  the  trenches,  and  were  of 
little  assistance  elsewhere  except  as  scouts;  many  formed 
the  hasty  conclusion  that  their  revolution  was  one  of  fuss, 
feathers,  and  furor,  and  were  led  to  belittle  their  fighting- 
qualities  and  minimize  their  patriotism. 

To  correct  that  impression,  allow  me  to  present  a  few 
facts.  I  will  count  as  nothing  the  great  cruelty,  destruc- 
tion of  property  and  irregular  war  methods  permitted 
by  Spain  during  the  "Ten  Years  War"  which  closed  in 
President  Grant's  time;  I  will  take  no  account  of  the 
failure  of  that  country  to  carry  out  her  definite  promises 
of  reform,  solemnly  made  to  end  that  conflict ;  and  I  will 
base  my  demonstration  upon  findings  during  the  last  re- 
volt of  that  island  that  began  in  February,  1895,  and 
ended  when  Santiago  fell,  July  17,  1898. 

General  Funston,  who  served  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Cuban  army  from  private  to  lieutenant  colonel,  had  great 
admiration  for  their  fighting  qualities.    Even  though  they 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  401 

may  not  excel  in  fine  tactics,  precise  evolutions,  and 
powerful  mass  formation,  yet  as  loose  fighters  and  rapid 
scouters,  they  proved  themselves  brave  and  efficient. 

I  understand  that  the  war  records  of  this  last  revolu- 
tion have  been  carefully  compiled  and  are  now  on  file  in 
Havana.  These  records  show  during  the  three  years  of 
the  War  53,744  men  served  in  their  army  a  longer  or 
shorter  time.  Of  this  number  5,180  were  battle  losses — ■ 
killed  or  died  of  wounds — and  3,437  died  of  disease. 
These  are  not  estimates,  they  are  records  showing  the 
company  and  regiment  of  each  deceased  soldier,  the  en- 
gagement where  he  was  killed,  and  the  date  of  his  death. 
These  figures  prove  a  battle  loss  of  over  ninety-five  men 
to  the  thousand  enrolled,  while  the  disease  loss  was  only 
about  two-thirds  of  that  number. 

No  better,  braver  men  ever  faced  each  other  than  the 
two  armies  who  fought  during  the  three  years  of  our  own 
Civil  War  and  yet  our  battle  loss  was  only  fifty-five  men 
to  the  thousand,  while  our  disease  loss  was  three  times 
that  number. 

No  one  ever  doubted  the  bravery  of  our  boys  who 
fought  the  Mexican  War,  yet  their  battle  loss  was  only 
sixteen  to  the  thousand,  while  their  disease  loss  was  over 
sixty-two.  The  most  surprising  comparison  of  all,  per- 
haps, is  that  the  Cuban  army  of  little  more  than  53,000 
men,  during  its  last  revolt,  lost  in  three  years  more  men 
killed  and  died  of  wounds  than  the  United  States  suffered 
from  its  hundreds  of  thousands  of  enrolled  men  who 
served  in  the  War  of  1812,  the  Mexican  War,  the  Spanish 
and   Philippine  Wars  combined. 


402  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

A  careful  consideration  of  these  statistics,  especially 
when  comparison  of  relative  battle  losses  and  death  losses 
is  made,  reaches  the  unavoidable  conclusion  that  the  Cu- 
ban fought  bravely  and  well. 

The  suffering  the  Cuban  and  his  family  endured  and 
the  horrors  they  survived,  never  can  be,  never  will  be,  and 
perhaps  never  should  be  told.  A  plain  mathematical  state- 
ment is  sufficient  to  prove  the  unspeakable  distress  of  it 
all. 

On  February  ioth,  1896,  General  Weyler  took  com- 
mand of  the  island  as  governor  and  captain-general,  and 
issued  his  concentration  orders.  This  policy  grew  out  of 
the  fact  that  so  long  as  the  wives  and  children  of  the 
insurgent  soldiers  were  left  upon  their  little  farms  to 
raise  crops  for  food  and  forage,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  conquer  the  men — the  Ten  Years  War  had  established 
this  fully.  Weyler  therefore  concluded  that  the  only  way 
to  put  down  the  revolt  would  be  to  require  that  all  farm- 
ers and  families  "concentrate,"  leave  their  farms,  let  them 
lie  idle,  and  live  in  towns  occupied  by  Spanish  soldiers. 
Failure  to  do  this  proved  the  delinquent  to  be  a  rebel  and 
he  was  treated  accordingly. 

The  Consul  General  of  the  United  States,  Fitshugh 
Lee,  officially  reports  in  December  1897,  that  tne  effect 
of  this  policy  was  to  take  four  hundred  thousand  inhabi- 
tants, independent  small  farmers  and  families,  who  were 
taking  care  of  themselves,  and  place  them  in  camps  where 
they  must  be  fed  and  clothed  by  others.  This  crime  was 
all  the  darker  because  they  were  not  cared  for  and  fed, 
and  by  far  the  greater  number  of  these  persons  were 
women  and  children. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  403 

What  the  results  of  such  forced  concentration  would 
be  could  easily  be  imagined,  but  no  effort  in  that  direc- 
tion is  necessary  because  the  same  authority  states  to  our 
government,  that  in  the  province  of  Havana  alone,  out  of 
a  hundred  and  one  thousand  concentrados,  fifty-two 
thousand  had  died.  Here  one  may  give  his  imagination 
full  flight  and  its  loftiest  soaring  cannot  visualize  the 
disease,  distress,  and  despair  actually  present. 

The  United  States  was  neither  a  willing  nor  an  unsym- 
pathetic witness  of  all  this  devastation.  During  the  "Ten 
Years  War"  her  patience  had  been  exhausted,  and  Gen- 
eral Grant  during  his  presidency  would  have  intervened 
had  not  Spain  definitely  pledged  reforms. 

Now  that  Spain's  misgovernment  had  begun  anew, 
the  people  of  our  country  could  have  patience  no  longer. 
In  September  1897,  through  our  minister  to  Spain,  Gen- 
eral Woodford,  President  McKinley  sent  a  note  to  the 
Spanish  government  stating  the  position  of  the  United 
States  and  demanding  an  adjustment  of  Cuban  affairs. 
The  minister  also  had  authority  to  state,  "The  president 
instructs  me  to  say  that  we  do  not  want  Cuba.  He  also 
instructs  me  to  say  with  equal  clearness,  that  we  do  wish 
immediate  peace  in  Cuba." 

This  demand  had  its  effect.  Weyler  was  recalled  by 
Spain,  the  concentration  orders  were  modified,  and  on  the 
17th  of  October  General  Blanco  was  appointed  under 
liberal  instructions  and  a  pledge  by  the  new  ministry  to 
grant  autonomy  to  Cuba. 

But  this  reform  came  too  late — the  country  was 
ruined.  Senator  Proctor,  who  visited  the  island  said, 
"Outside  of  Havana,  all  is  changed.    It  is  not  peace,  it  is 


404  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

not  war.  It  is  desolation,  distress,  misery  and  starva- 
tion." Neither  the  Spanish  citizens  of  Cuba,  nor  the 
.Cubans,  now  wanted  autonomy.  The  Spanish  objected 
because  it  would  put  the  island  under  Cuban  rule,  and  the 
Cubans  had  experienced  all  of  Spain's  sovereignty  they 
desired  to  tolerate. 

Whether  this  new  government  would  have  succeeded 
or  not,  no  person  knows,  because  on  the  15th  day  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1898,  before  it  had  endured  long  enough  to  test 
its  acceptability,  the  tragedy  of  the  sinking  of  the  Maine 
occurred  in  Havana's  harbor  and  the  people  of  the  United 
States  went  wild  with  excitement  and  demanded  imme- 
diate and  effective  intervention. 

The  idea  that  a  battleship  of  our  navy,  making  a 
friendly  visit,  anchored  where  designated  by  Spanish 
officials,  should  be  destroyed,  blown  up  by  a  torpedo, 
and  two  hundred  and  fifty-two  of  our  sailors  killed  by 
Spain,  could  not  for  one  moment  be  tolerated  without 
war.  Yielding  to  the  influence  of  calmer  parties,  the 
country  breathlessly  awaited  the  report  of  experts  sent 
to  Havana  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  the  ship's  loss.  There 
was  no  doubt  that  an  explosion  had  occurred  in  the 
Maine's  magazine,  and  this  question  was  submitted  to  the 
commission :  Was  this  explosion  the  cause  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  vessel  or  was  it  only  secondary,  and  a  result 
of  some  greater  explosion  outside  the  ship?  After  long 
and  careful  examination  by  these  expert  deep-sea  divers 
and  others,  this  commission  reported  their  findings  to  be, 
that  the  battleship  had  been  sunk  by  an  explosion  from 
the  outside  so  severe  that  its  bottom  had  been  raised 
thirty-four  feet  from  its  true  level. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  405 

Who  fired  the  torpedo  is  not  known  to  this  day,  but 
no  evidence  could  convince  the  American  people  that  any 
one  except  Spain  was  the  guilty  party.  The  time  for 
debate  was  past,  the  time  for  action  had  come,  and  with- 
out regard  to  party  affiliations,  social  distinction,  or  place 
of  birth,  the  country  demanded  that  Spain,  which  had 
exploited  and  victimized  Cuba  for  these  hundreds  of 
years,  should  get  out  of  the  island  at  once  and  forever. 
War  was  declared  April  21,  1898;  both  houses  concurred 
by  resolutions  without  regard  to  party. 

President  Roosevelt  once  stated,  "That  the  most  strik- 
ing thing  about  the  war  with  Spain  was  the  preparedness 
of  the  navy  and  the  unpreparedness  of  the  army." 
Whether  or  not  this  statement  was  absolutely  true  as  to 
the  navy,  it  most  certainly  was  correct  as  to  the  army. 
On  the  9th  dayof  March,  foreseeing  the  conflict,  Congress 
had  voted  $50,000,000  as  a  fund  to  be  used  for  the 
defence  of  the  United  States,  and  President  McKinley  as 
custodian  of  that  fund  had  strictly  confined  its  use  to 
defensive  expenditures.  Therefore,  when  war  was  de- 
clared no  preparation  of  any  kind  had  been  made  for 
offensive  movements. 

President  McKinley  made  his  first  call  for  125,000 
volunteer  troops  on  the  23rd  of  April,  and  on  the  25th  of 
May  his  second  of  75,000,  making  200,000  volunteers 
called  into  the  field.  The  grand  total  of  the  army  for  this 
war,  including  regulars  and  all  levies,  was  approximately 
275,000  men. 

There  was  no  necessity  for  a  draft  to  raise  these  men. 
The  veterans  of  the  Civil  War,  who  wore  the  blue,  and 
those  who  wore  the  grey,  together  with  their  sons,  con- 


4o6  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

tested  each  other  for  the  right  and  honor  of  defending 
the  old  flag.  The  question  that  most  seriously  troubled 
the  administration  at  Washington  was  not  how  many 
men  should  be  required  from  each  state,  but  how  many 
men  each  state  should  be  permitted  to  furnish. 

As  far  as  possible  to  acclimate  these  new  troops  to 
conditions  in  Cuba,  they  were  mobilized  in  four  camps  all 
in  the  South :  one  at  Chickamauga,  under  General  J.  R. 
Brooke ;  one  at  New  Orleans,  under  General  W.  R. 
Shafter;  one  at  Mobile  under  General  J.  J.  Coppinger; 
and  the  fourth  at  Tampa  under  General  J.  F.  Wade ;  and 
this  mobilization  in  camp  was  all  the  war  service  that 
many  Spanish  War  veterans  ever  saw.  This  counts  not 
against  their  patriotism;  they  did  their  share  and  were 
ready ;  some  men  sick  in  hospitals  and  unfit  for  any  serv- 
ice, when  it  was  rumored  their  regiments  were  to  be  sent 
out,  left  their  wards  without  permission  and  reported  for 
duty  in  their  companies. 

For  moving  these  troops  the  government  contract 
with  the  railroads  was,  "that  day  coaches  should  be  used ; 
one  seat  should  be  allowed  to  each  man  and  his  equipage 
and,  when  the  run  was  over  twenty-four  hours,  sleeping 
cars  should  be  provided ;  one  section  to  each  three  men." 
When  the  veterans  of  the  Civil  War,  both  North  and 
South,  remembered  how  they  were  piled  upon  open  flat 
cars,  or  crowded  into  box  cars — "side  door  Pullmans," 
the  boys  called  them — or  assigned  to  "palace  cars"  that 
hogs  and  cattle  usually  occupied,  and  thought  it  was  all 
right  so  we  only  "got  there""  on  time,  they  could  not  help 
smiling  quietly  when  they  heard  some  sleeping  car  soldier 
complain  of  the  hardships  he  endured  traveling. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  407 

Section  II.    Movements  and  Attained  Results 

The  general  plan  for  the  war,  contemplated  by  the 
commanding  officers  of  the  army  and  navy,  were :  First, 
to  require  Admiral  Dewey  to  attend  to  the  far  eastern 
fleet  of  the  Spanish  navy,  under  Admiral  Montojo,  and 
see  that  it  neither  sailed  across  the.  Pacific  Ocean  and 
attacked  our  western  coast  nor  went  through  the  Suez 
canal  to  vex  our  eastern  cities.  Second,  to  invade  Cuba 
at  or  near  the  city  of  Havana.  Third,  to  care  for  Cervera's 
Spanish  Fleet  in  the  West.  Fourth,  to  capture  Puerto 
Rico  by  the  way  of  the  city  of  San  Juan. 

Circumstances  changed  all  this.  Dewey's  unexpected 
destruction  of  the  Spanish  fleet  made  a  land  expedition 
to  the  Philippine  Islands  necessary  to  secure  and  com- 
plete his  victory.  Cuba  was  finally  invaded,  not  at  Havana 
but  at  Santiago,  and  Puerto  Rico  not  at  San  Juan,  but 
at  Ponce. 

President  McKinley  had  most  properly  decided  that  a 
part  of  the  $50,000,000  voted  in  March  for  defense  should 
be  applied  to  the  navy.  Therefore,  the  opening  of  the 
war  found  Admiral  Dewey  and  his  fleet  at  Hong  Kong, 
China,  fully  coaled,  stripped  for  action,  and  painted  grey 
for  a  fight. 

The  very  day  Spain  declared  war,  April  24th,  Dewey 
was  notified,  and  ordered  to  proceed  against  the  Spanish 
fleet.  The  next  day  he  left  Hong  Kong  looking  for 
trouble  with  Admiral  Montojo  and  his  command — he 
found  them  in  Manila  Bay. 

Notwithstanding  the  supposed  danger,  Admiral 
Dewey,  about  midnight  of  April  30th,  led  his  fleet  past, 
and  directly  in  range  of  the  batteries  of  Caballo.     The 


408  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Spanish  garrison  seemingly  never  woke  up  until  the  fleet 
was  fully  abreast  of  their  guns  and  then  succeeded  in 
firing  only  a  few  harmless  shots  at  the  vessels  which  had 
already  passed.  If  any  torpedoes  had  been  planted,  the 
enemy  were  too  surprised  to  fire  them. 

Admiral  Dewey's  fighting  fleet  consisted  of  six  ves- 
sels, not  one  of  them  iron-clad,  but  only  partly  protected 
ships.  He  at  once  prepared  to  engage  the  Spanish  fleet 
and  fortifications  near  Manila.  Admiral  Montojo  had 
drawn  up  his  nine  ships  in  line  of  battle  where  they  were 
supported  by  five  strong  shore  batteries,  two  at  Cavite 
arsenal  and  three  at  Manila,  and  all  behind  a  line  of 
mines. 

Stripped  for  action  and  ready  for  fight,  Admiral 
Dewey's  fleet  sailed  across  Manila  Bay  in  single  file,  the 
Olympia,  Dewey's  flagship,  leading.  Then  followed  in 
order,  at  proper  distances,  the  Baltimore,  Raleigh,  Petrol, 
Concord,  and  Boston. 

About  daylight  they  reached  Cavite  and  Montojo's 
fleet,  and  when  within  5600  yards  Dewey  quietly  said  to 
the  captain  of  the  Olympia,  "You  can  fire  when  you  are 
ready,  Gridley."  The  battle  was  on — nine  ships  and  five 
batteries  in  home  surroundings,  and  many  of  the  men  in 
the  sight  of  wives  and  children,  against  six  ships  from  the 
antipodes. 

Our  vessels  passed  Cavite  and  Montojo's  fleet  sailing 
in  an  oval  back  and  forth  discharging  one  broadside  of 
their  ships  on  one  tack  and  the  other  broadside  on  their 
return.  All  the  time  the  shore  batteries  and  the  Spanish 
fleet  replied  vigorously  but  for  some  cause  very  non- 
efTectively. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  409 

Three  times  our  ships  circled  thus  before  the  enemy, 
and  the  result  of  the  fight  sounds  like  an  "Arabian  Night's 
Tale" — on  the  American  side  victory,  and  only  seven  men 
slightly  wounded,  not  a  ship  injured;  on  the  Spanish  side, 
defeat,  and  three  hundred  and  eighty-one  men  killed  and 
wounded,  the  entire  fleet  burned,  sunk  or  destroyed,  and 
three  shore  batteries  silenced. 

The  cause  of  this  great  difference  of  result  is  hard  to 
comprehend.  Many  people  dismiss  discussion  of  the 
matter  by  saying  that  Montojo's  fleet  was  obsolete  and 
that  he  had  no  effective  ships  or  armament.  I  so  thought 
until  I  found  that  at  least  three  of  his  ships,  the  Isla  De 
Luson,  the  Isla  de  Cuba,  and  the  Don  Juan  de  Austria, 
were  constructed  and  launched  about  the  time  three  of 
Dewey's  were  commissioned,  that  a  fourth,  the  Rieni 
Christina,  was  a  steel  vessel,  of  which  class  Dewey  had 
none ;  further,  that  on  the  Spanish  fleet  and  in  the  silenced 
batteries  were  thirty-six  modern  guns  of  approximately 
five  and  six  inch  caliber  that  should  have  pierced  our 
wooden  ships  through  and  through,  and  that  they  had 
within  two  as  many  rapid  fire  guns  as  we  used. 

These  facts  considered,  one  is  compelled  to  seek  some 
other  reason.  Those  who  have  been  placed  in  a  position 
to  best  know  locate  the  cause  in  these  sources :  first,  ne- 
glected equipment ;  second,  faulty  ammunition ;  third,  the 
reported  custom  of  Spain  to  supply  its  men  with  intoxicat- 
ing drink  prior  to  engagements ;  and  last,  but  not  least,  to 
the  men  behind  the  guns. 

The  best  guns  and  the  most  forceful  ammunition  is  of 
no  effect  unless  markmanship  is  good.  The  Spaniards,  in 
their  fleet  and  batteries,  had  more  guns  and  a  great  many 
more  men  than  the  Americans,  and  during  the  heat  of 


410  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  conflict  must  have  fired  more  rounds  of  ammunition 
than  Dewey's  men,  but  with  far  different  results.  Our 
ships  were  uninjured;  the  Spanish  fleet  was  destroyed. 

Admiral  Dewey's  victory  over  the  fleet  and  the  shore 
batteries  placed  Manila  Bay  and  the  City  of  Manila  under 
his  control.  The  latter  he  could  take  by  bombardment  at 
any  time,  but  not  having  troops  to  garrison  it  he  refrained 
from  such  destruction  and  referred  the  matter  to  his  gov- 
ernment for  instruction  and  action: 

A  land  force  under  General  Wesley  Merritt  was 
organized,  equipped  and  sent  to  Manila  with  the  least 
possible  delay.  But  the  first  detachment  did  not  reach 
there  until  June  30th  and  the  city  and  its  garrison  were 
not  captured  until  August  14th,  at  which  time  the  Philip- 
pine Islands  were  forever  released  from  Spain's  tyranny. 

Thus  the  first  objective  of  the  war  was  more  than 
fully  obtained. 

The  second,  the  invasion  of  Cuba,  was  hastened  by 
the  movement  of  the  second  Spanish  fleet  under  the  com- 
mand of  Admiral  Cervera.  He  left  Cape  De  Verde 
Islands  April  29th.  What  his  destination  was  no  person 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic  knew.  The  government  thought 
it  must  be  the  West  Indies  Islands,  but  each  city  along 
the  Atlantic  coast  imagined  that  its  port  would  be  the 
point  of  attack,  and  in  the  wildest  panic  called  upon  the 
government  for  protection.  May  12th  the  fleet  was  re- 
ported off  Martinique;  on  the  19th  it  entered  Santiago 
Bay;  on  the  23rd  Commodore  Schley  was  ordered  to 
blockade  it  there ;  on  the  28th  the  blockade  was  effectively 
established,  and  the  cities  of  the  Atlantic  coast  were  re- 
lieved from  the  dread  of  bombardment. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  411 

This  movement  of  Cervera's  fleet  compelled  the  United 
States  to  change  the  objective  point  of  the  invasion  of 
Cuba  from  Havana  to  Santiago,  and  General  Shafter 
with  his  command  of  about  17,000  men  was  ordered  to 
that  place. 

He  left  the  United  States  June  7th,  was  recalled  and 
delayed  one  week  by  a  "phantom  Spanish  fleet  scare,"  but 
finally  made  a  surf  landing  at  Daiquiri,  Cuba,  near  San- 
tiago, June  2 1st,  without  serious  loss  or  delay,  and  im- 
mediately commenced  his  advance  upon  that  city. 

During  this  advance  occurred  the  most  serious  fighting 
of  the  land  forces.  The  first  engagement  was  at  Las 
Guasimas,  June  24th.  Here  the  Spanish  made  the  surpris- 
ing report  of  the  battle :  "We  defeated  the  enemy,  but  he 
kept  on  fighting,  and  we  had  to  retire."  Upon  July  1st, 
came  the  fight  at  El  Caney,  and  later,  the  same  day,  the 
battle  at  San  Juan  Hill,  both  brilliant  victories  for  the 
American  army  which  resulted  in  the  practical  invest- 
ment of  the  city. 

On  July  3rd  General  Shafter  demanded  the  surrender 
of  Santiago.  General  Toral,  commanding  the  Spanish 
forces,  refused  compliance  but  said  that  he  would  submit 
General  Shafter's  terms  to  higher  authority  for  orders. 
This  was  done,  and  after  many  consultations  and  much 
correspondence,  the  city  was  surrendered  on  the  17th 
of  July,  with  twenty-four  thousand  prisoners,  all  their 
arms,  materials  and  over  a  million  rations.  Thus  was  the 
second  objective  obtained. 

The  campaign  that  had  produced  this  result  had  been 
short  as  to  time  and  economical  as  to  losses.  Only  twenty- 


412  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

three  days  had  elapsed,  and  our  killed  and  wounded  had 
been  only  1,688 — 243  of  former,  and  1,445  of  the  latter. 

No  wonder  General  Toral  wanted  authority  to  sur- 
render 24,000  men,  one-half  of  whom  were  fully  in- 
trenched, all  well-protected  from  the  torrential  rains  and 
fully  rationed,  to  an  enemy  of  only  three-fourths  of  his 
number,  in  open  trenches  subject  to  deluging  storms,  and 
nearly  prostrate  from  the  effects  of  malarial  and  yellow 
fevers.  Had  he  not  done  so  he  might  have  faced  a  court 
martial  in  Spain.  The  Spanish  report  of  the  Las  Guasi- 
mas  fight,  "We  defeated  the  enemy  but  he  kept  on  fight- 
ing and  we  had  to  retire,"  must  have  affected  his  nerve 
and  shaken  his  courage. 

On  the  3rd  day  of  July,  the  day  General  Shafter  de- 
manded the  surrender  of  Santiago,  the  Spanish  officials, 
foreseeing  the  fall  of  the  city,  were  forced  to  a  decision  as 
to  the  fate  of  Cervera's  fleet  still  lying  in  its  harbor. 
Should  it  be  surrendered  or  destroyed,  or  should  it  dare 
a  fight  with  the  American  navy  outside?  Cervera  refused 
to  take  the  responsibility  of  the  last  alternative  without 
orders.  Captain  General  Blanco  decided  the  question  by 
directing  that  the  fleet  should  be  neither  surrendered  nor 
destroyed  without  a  fight. 

Obeying  these  orders,  at  9  145  that  Sunday  morning 
Cevera  sailed  out  of  the  harbor  with  his  six  fighting  ships. 
He  passed  the  uselessly  wrecked  Merrimac,  and  entered 
the  open  ocean  to  meet  such  fate  as  was  before  him.  It 
was  a  fierce,  quick,  running  fight  that  he  found.  By  1:15 
P.  M.  it  was  all  over,  and  the  Colon,  his  last  remaining 
ship,  went  on  shore  and  surrendered  seventy-five  miles 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  413 

west  of  Santiago.  The  others  were  all  wrecks  strewn 
along  the  beach  at  various  points  within  twenty  miles  of 
the  harbor  from  which  they  came. 

It  was  a  naval  battle  second  only  to  Dewey's  victory 
in  Manila  Bay.  Of  the  six  American  ships  that  took  part 
in  this  engagement  not  one  was  injured,  and  of  their 
crews  only  one  man  was  killed  and  one  injured;  while  of 
the  Spanish  ships  every  one  was  destroyed  and  about  six 
hundred  of  their  crews  were  killed  or  wounded.  Where 
in  the  annals  of  naval  warfare  can  two  such  brilliant  vic- 
tories be  found? 

In  this  glorious  and  most  successful  manner  the  second 
and  third  objectives  were  reached. 

The  fourth  objective  was  the  invasion  of  Puerto  Rico. 

General  Miles  took  personal  command  of  this  expedi- 
tion. In  place  of  proceeding  against  San  Juan  on  the 
north  side  of  the  island  as  contemplated,  he  landed  near 
Ponce  on  the  south  side  and  to  the  great  delight  of  its 
citizens  occupied  it  on  the  28th  day  of  July.  Two  expedi- 
tions were  then  organized  to  drive  the  Spanish  out  of  the 
island :  one  under  Generals  Nelson  and  Brooke,  whose  ob- 
jective was  San  Juan  via  Aibonito,  that  would  sweep  the 
eastern  portion  of  the  island ;  and  the  other  under  Gener- 
als Henry  and  Schwan,  to  clear  the  west,  with  Arecibo  as 
its  final  objective.  These  expeditions,  both  well-planned, 
had  been  successfully  inaugurated,  and  would  without 
doubt  have  been  victoriously  terminated  had  they  not  been 
stopped  by  the  close  of  the  war. 

This  Spanish-American  war  has  been  much  belittled 
and  subjected  to  harsh,  even  brutal,  criticism  by  citizens 
and  volunteer  soldiers.     It  seems  to  me  that,  although 


414  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

comparatively  small  and  unexpectedly  brief,  it  is  one  of 
which  the  nation  should  be  proud.  War  was  declared 
April  21,  1898,  and  peace  was  concluded  August  13th  of 
the  same  year — only  three  months  and  twenty-two  days. 
It  found  our  navy  in  a  reasonable  condition  of  prepara- 
tion, but,  save  a  squad  of  26,000  regular  troops,  we  had 
no  army,  no  serviceable  arms,  equipment,  ammunition, 
clothing  or  provisions  for  one ;  yet  in  the  time  mentioned 
263,000  men  had^been  mobilized,  armed,  equipped,  clothed, 
rationed,  and  sent  upon  three  separate  victorious  expedi- 
tions that  had  acquired  the  objectives  for  which  they  had 
been  sent,  and  had  materially  assisted  the  navy  in  wip- 
ing the  Spanish  fleet  from  off  the  ocean.  That  is  a  record 
which  every  American  should  appreciate. 

But  there  were  complaints — loud  complaints — espe- 
cially from  the  soldiers  of  the  Santiago  campaign.  These 
came  from  the  new  volunteers;  from  the  regular  troops, 
there  were  none.  It  was  unavoidable  that  there  should 
be  complaints  from  the  new  volunteers.  One  who  has 
served  among  them  as  long  as  I,  knows  what  kind  of  a  man 
a  fresh  volunteer  may  be.  He  is  brave,  patriotic,  and 
will  stand  any  privation  and  even  die  for  his  country,  but 
he  reserves  fully  the  citizens'  right  to  kick  when  anything 
does  not  go  to  suit  him,  especially  when  it  interferes  with 
his  regular  three  meals  a  day;  and  he  wants  his  people  at 
home  to  know  what  great  sacrifices  he  is  undergoing  for 
his  country.  The  curious  thing  is  that  the  fewer  comforts 
he  has  at  home,  the  louder  he  will  cry  when  deprived  of 
them  in  the  army. 

A  friend  of  mine  came  to  me  in  tears  to  relate  the 
privation  which  her  son  was  enduring  in  this  army.  When 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  415 

m 

I  investigated  the  real  facts  of  the  boy's  complaint  I  found 
his  grievance  was  that  his  brutal  officers  would  not  let 
him  set  up  in  his  tent  a  modern  bedstead  with  spring 
mattress.  When  I  had  explained  a  little  of  army  life  to 
this  mother,  she  went  away  comforted.  This  stage  of  the 
war  volunteer's  experience  does  not  last  -long,  especially 
if  he  is  given  really  serious  fighting  to  do;  he  soon  takes 
his  hardships  without  whimpering  or  makes  a  joke  of 
them,  as  our  Civil  War  boys  did  at  Gravelly  Springs 
when  they  were  living  on  mouldy  corn  in  the  ear. 

Now  Shafter's  men  had  been  only  a  few  weeks  away 
from  home.  They  were  having  pretty  hard  times,  and 
they  wanted  the  people  at  home  to  know  all  about  their 
trials.  There  were  eighty-six  correspondents  of  news- 
papers, over  five  to  each  regiment,  more  than  one  for  each 
batallion,  to  help  him  tell  about  them.  These  correspond- 
ents had  to  earn  their  money  and  furnish  copy  for  their 
papers,  and  to  many  a  reporter  a  "good  story"  must  be 
told,  its  truth  or  falsity  being  a  matter  of  secondary  con- 
sideration. It  came  about,  therefore,  that  along  with  the 
mass  of  true  and  proper  news  sent  by  these  men  from  the 
front  there  were  many  items  which  falsified  facts,  sland- 
ered officials,  discredited  the  soldiers,  magnified  a  suffi- 
ciently bad  condition,  and  caused  many  needless,  sleepless 
nights  and  weeping  eyes  to  thousands  of  loving  ones  at 
home. 

That  war  was  a  good  fight  well  won,  but  as  an  Ameri- 
can citizen  I  am  more  proud  of  what  we  did  for  Cuba 
after  her  independence  than  of  our  aid  in  gaining  it. 

When  we  took  control  of  their  affairs  there  was  no 
government,  except  locally  in  the  cities  and  towns.     We 


416  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

m 

established  a  democratic  sovereignty  that  has  remained 
until  now  and  may  long  continue  to  last.  We  found  her 
cities  plague-smitten  with  yellow  fever  and  other  tropic 
diseases;  we  installed  modern  sanitary  measures  that 
cleaned  them  up,  and  the  yellow  fever,  for  the  first  time 
since  its  introduction  into  Cuba,  was  swept  out  of  its  per- 
ennial stronghold,  Havana.  We  re-organized  their 
schools,  built  public  works,  and  established  hospitals,  we 
paid  for  it  all  out  of  the  revenues  of  the  island ;  and  left 
a  surplus  of  $1,792,109.52  in  the  treasury  when  we  sur- 
rendered our  trust — an  unprecedented  condition  for  a 
Cubian  government.  We  found  them  a  starving,  poverty- 
stricken,  disorganized  aggregation  of  humanity;  we  left 
them  a  prosperous,  growing,  happy  people.  These  are  a 
few  of  the  blessings  which  the  Spanish-American  War 
brought  to  the  Cuban  Republic,  and  I  for  one  am  proud  of 
our  part  in  it. 

RECAPITULATION  OF  THE 
SPANISH-AMERICAN  WAR 
April  21 — August  13,  1898 
General  Objective 

The  Freeing  of  Cuba  from  Spain. 
Campaign  Objectives 

1.  Admiral  Montojo's  Spanish  fleet  in  the  Pacific. 

2.  The  invasion  of  Cuba  by  way  of  Havana. 

3.  Admiral  Cervera's  Spanish  fleet  in  the  Atlantic. 

4.  The  invasion  of  Porto  Rico  by  way  of  San  Juan. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  417 

Decisive  Engagements 

1.  Battle  with  Admiral  Montojo's  fleet  in  Manila  Bay. 

2.  Siege  and  battles  near  Santiago,  Cuba. 

3.  Fight  with  Admiral  Cervera's  fleet  near  Santiago. 

4.  Siege  and  battle  at  City  of  Manila,  Luzon. 

Findings 

General  Objective 

Fully  attained,  Cuba  delivered  from  the  sovereignty 
of  Spain  and  made  a  republic. 

Camp aign  0  bjec  tives 

1    Admiral  Montojo's  fleet  completely  destroyed. 

2.  Cuba  invaded,  not  at  Havana  but  at  Santiago,  and 
that  city  captured. 

3.  Cervera's  fleet  entirely  disposed  of. 

4.  Porto  Rico  invaded  and  captured,  not  by  way  of 
San  Juan,  but  at  Ponce. 


418  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  WORLD  WAR 

Section  I.     Our  Work  in  America 

Never,  so  long  as  nations  shall  live  and  history  endure, 

will  the  fatal  act  committed  at  forty  minutes  past  ten 

the  morning  of  June  27,  19 14,  on  the  street  of  Serajevo, 

Bosnia,  by  an  eighteen-year  old  school  boy,  be  forgotten. 

Whether  Gavrilo  Prinzep,  the  boy  who  fired  the  shots 
that  then  killed  Archduke  Francis  Ferdinand,  heir  pre- 
sumptive of  the  Austro-Hungarian  throne,  was  a  brutal 
murderer,  a  crazy  fanatic,  or  a  self-sacrificing  patriot 
endeavoring  to  right  the  wrongs  of  Bosnia  and  Herzego- 
vina, makes  no  difference  to  the  catastrophe  that  followed. 
Whether  the  Archduke,  who  lost  his  life  was  a  wise  and 
just  ruler  or  a  bigoted  tyrant,  matters  not  in  the  world 
war  of  nations  that  followed.  But  the  simple  act  count- 
ed for  much :  it  furnished  the  excuse  for  a  conflict  long- 
desired  and  long-sought  for  by  Hohenzollern  war  lords. 

The  flash  of  Prinzep's'  pistol  was  not  the  cause  of  the 
war  that  ensued ;  it  simply  furnished  the  spark  that  set 
into  a  furious  flame  an  accumulation  of  combustible  con- 
ditions that  European  nations  had  for  many  decades  been 
assembling.  Unrighted  wrongs,  unrealized  ambitions, 
disappointed  hopes,  commercial  rivalry,  racial  prejudices, 
competition  in  military  and  naval  armaments  carried  to 
the  extreme  of  endurance,  the  servitude  of  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina  on  the  Adriatic  and  of  Alsace  and  Lor- 
raine on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  all  stimulated  by  the 
vaulting  egotism  and  ambition  of  Prussian  junkers  and 
war  lords,  constituted  a  condition  that  was  bound  to  bring 
war ;  when,  mattered  but  little ;  how,  mattered  not  at  all. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  419 

The  resulting  crash  threatened  to  destroy  Europe 
and  involved  the  whole  world.  Asia,  Africa,  both  Amer- 
icas and  the  isles  of  the  seas  were  all  more  or  less  silent 
or  active  participants  in  the  conflict  that  ensued.  Ger- 
many declared  war  in  July,  1914,  and  before  the  year 
expired  nine  nations  were  actively  in  conflict  with  the 
Teutonic  powers  or  their  ally  Turkey ;  before  the  close 
of  1915,  two  more  followed;  by  the  end  of  1916  three 
more  lined  up  on  the  battle  front;  during  1917,  eight 
others  joined  and  still  more  came,  until,  when  the  end 
arrived,  November  11,  1918,  twenty-four  sovereign 
states,  large  and  small,  had  rallied  for  the  right  upon 
the  battle  field  against  Germany  and  her  allies,  while  six 
others  had  severed  relations  with  her. 

This  was  the  greatest  war  of  all  times,  ancient  or 
modern.  The  fabled  hordes  of  Xerxes  and  Alexander 
the  Great  were  far  surpassed  and  outnumbered  by  the 
corps,  divisions,  and  regiments  that  here  fought.  Statis- 
tics show  that  59,414,700  men  were  by  the  eleven  leading 
nations — seven  of  Allies  and  four  of  the  Teutonic  powers 
— placed  in  battle  line;  that  these  nations  suffered 
30,293,501  casualties  from  all  causes,  and  that  7,450,200 
of  these  men  were  killed  or  died  from  wounds.  National 
debts  of  only  five  nations  were  increased  from  twenty- 
two  and  one-half  billions  of  dollars  in  19 14  when  the 
war  began,  to  the  inconceivable  amount  of  one  hundred 
and  thirty-five  billions  at  its  close. 

Large  and  fertile  portions  of  seven  nations  were 
battle  scarred  or  battle  ruined,  and  it  is  estimated  that 
six  thousand  ships  were  sunk  or  destroyed,  and  that 
from  one  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred  billions  was 


420  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  direct  money  cost  to  the  nations  involved.  Such  are 
a  few  of  the  bare  facts  of  the  gigantic  struggle  that  a 
boy's  pistol  flashed  upon  humanity.  Truly  it  was  a  "shot 
that  echoed  around  the  world." 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  follow  even  briefly  the  rec- 
ord of  that  great  war,  but  simply  in  an  epitomized  form 
to  note  something  of  the  part  taken  in  it  by  the  United 
States. 

When  the  war  commenced  the  position  which  our 
country  officially  assumed  was  one  of  strict  neutrality. 
Such  was  the  attitude  of  our  government,  but  such  could 
not  be  the  feeling  of  a  great  majority  of  our  people. 
Gathered  here  in  our  midst  were  citizens  from  every 
land  that  was  engaged  in  the  fighting  abroad,  and,  al- 
though they  might,  and  largely  did,  honestly  render  to 
this,  the  country  of  their  adoption,  their  first  and  highest 
allegiance,  their  sympathy  and  love  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree  reverted  to  their  old  homes  and  relatives. 

Thus,  when  children  of  different  warring  -  nations 
were  thrown  together  in  the  public  meeting,  on  the  rail- 
road train,  at  the  hotel  table,  and  even  in  the  family 
circle,  clashes  of  opinion  and  arguments,  hot  and  high, 
were  bound  to  come.  So  great  was  the  danger  in  our 
midst  that  President  Wilson  issued  this  appeal  asking 
our  people  to  guard  against  this  danger :  "I  venture, 
therefore,  my  fellow  countrymen,  to  speak  a  solemn 
word  of  warning  to  you  against  that  deepest,  most  subtle, 
most  essential  breach  of  neutrality  which  may-  spring  out 
jf  partisanship,  out  of  passionately  taking  sides." 

It  follows,  without  saying,  that  as  soon  as  hostilities 
commenced  upon  the  other  side,  there  was  a  loud  call 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  421 

upon  us  for  war  munitions,  to  which  our  manufacturing 
plants  responded  quickly,  abundantly,  and  so  profitably 
that  they  were  enabled  to  raise  the  wages  of  laboring 
men  and  women  to  unheard  of  heights. 

Owing  to  the  command  of  the  ocean  by  Allied  navies, 
these  materials  of  war  could  go  only  to  the  Allies,  and 
none  to  the  Teutonic  powers.  No  matter  how  loyal  a 
German  citizen  might  be  to  the  United  States,  if  he  was 
a  man  of  strong  sympathies  and  abiding  affections,  it 
was  hard  for  him  to  see  shiploads  of  ammunition  by  the 
score  sent  across  the  water  to  kill  his  old  friends  and 
neighbors,  and  not  one  to  help  them.  It  made  him  doubt 
the  real  neutrality  of  America.  It  was  no  answer  to  him 
when  we  said,  "We  will  sell  our  goods  to  Germany  just 
as  quickly  and  as  cheaply  as  to  England,  but  if  Germany 
cannot  come  and  get  these  supplies  as  readily  as  England, 
it  is  a  fact  we  may  deplore  but  cannot  remedy." 

Now  that  the  struggle  is  all  past,  and  we  can  think 
calmly  of  the  conditions,  I  believe  the  wonder  is,  not 
that  some  of  our  German  citizens  were  restive  or  dazed 
by  the  fearful  condition,  but  that  so  generally  they  gave 
the  land  of  their  adoption  their  loyalty  and  support. 

For  two  years  and  eight  months,  the  United  States 
with  great  difficulty  preserved  her  neutrality.  The  new 
weapon  of  naval  warfare — the  submarine — was  the  princ- 
ipal cause  of  breaking  her  peaceful  relations  with  the 
Teutonic  powers.  The  submarine  being  an  entirely  new 
branch  of  war  service,  the  rules  and  regulations  under 
which  it  might  conduct  its  operations  had  not  been  devel- 
oped by  long  experience  and  compromise,  but  were  made 
by  each  belligerent  in  its  own  interests. 


422  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Germany  and  the  world  at  large  soon  clashed  in  re- 
gard to  the  correct  method  of  submarine  warfare.  The 
world,  outside  of  Germany  and  her  allies,  while  dis- 
agreeing largely  as  to  conditions  under  which  ships  might 
properly  be  torpedoed,  were  a  unit  upon  the  question  of 
non-combatants,  especially  women  and  children  who 
were  upon  the  vessels  so  destroyed.  The  world  said  that 
no  submarine  had  the  right  to  sink  any  vessel,  other 
than  a  warship  or  transport,  without  giving  its  crew 
and  passengers  every  opportunity  to  escape.  But  Germa- 
ny and  her  allies  refused  to  be  bound  by  any  such  rule, 
and  not  only  made  no  allowance  for  the  safety  of  the 
lives  of  those  who  were  unfortunate  enough  to  be  on 
board  the  craft  they  destroyed,  but  time  after  time  were, 
accused  of  firing  upon  the  luckless  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren who  were  trying  to  escape  on  the  small  boats  of 
their  sinking  ships. 

Protest  after  protest  President  Wilson  made  against 
such  destruction  of  our  boats  and  killing  of  our  citizens ; 
and  as  often  as  such  protest  was  made,  the  government 
at  Berlin  promised  investigation  and  cessation  of  the 
outrage — promises  so  seldom  and  slightly  fulfilled  as 
nearly  to  demonstrate  non-intention  of  performance  on 
the  part  of  the  giver.  This  submarine  slaughter  con- 
tinued with  increasing  recklessness  and  brutality  until 
January  31,  19 17,  when  the  German  government,  dis- 
regarding all  pledges  formerly  made,  announced  that 
"regardless  of  consequences,  on  February  1,  it  would 
commence  a  general,  unrestricted,  and  energized  cam- 
paign of  submarine  warfare  against  all  ships  of  hostile 
nations." 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  423 

This  order  was  also  to  apply  to  all  neutral  nations 
unless  they  should  mark  their  ships  in  a  special  manner, 
confine  their  course  to  a  narrow  lane,  limit  their  vessels 
in  number,  and  make  their  schedules  of  sailing  at  certain 
hours  of  particular  days  of  each  week. 

The  answer  of  the  United  States  to  that  preposterous 
proposition  that  so  limited  our  commerce  was  war,  and 
on  the  6th  of  April,  1917,  Congress,  agreeing  with  the 
President,  so  made  declaration. 

That  the  United  States  would  have  escaped  war  with 
Germany  had  there  been  no  submarine  question,  is  doubt- 
ful. There  is  no  question  that  many  Germans — the 
Kaiser  being  one — looked  to  our  wealth  to  indemnify 
them  for  the  enormous  expenses  of  the  war  and  to  whom 
the  Cologne  Volkszeitung  gave  voice  when  it  said  that 
Germany  was  "entitled  to  a  thumping  war  indemnity 
from  America,  since  other  states  which  had  sacrificed 
immense  sums  would  be  unable  to  pay  it,  therefore 
America,  which  had  earned  thousands  and  millions 
through  munitions  and  supplies,  will  have  to  unbutton 
its  pockets."  But  it  is  useless  to  consider  "what  might 
have  been."  A  state  of  war  was  declared,  and  imme- 
diately the  country  stripped  itself  for  the  conflict. 

The  sad  experience  in  army  unpreparedness  the 
Cnited  States  underwent  during  the  Spanish-American 
War  had  taught  us  a  lesson ;  therefore  the  opening  of 
the  World  War  found  our  arsenals  and  supply  depots 
ready  with  artillery,  rifles,  and  clothing  to  place  in  the 
field  the  largest  army  military  men  had  dee  reed  the 
I  'nited  States  would  ever  require — 500,000  men.  But 
500,000  men  were  a  mere  bagatelle  to  the  number  unex- 


424  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

pectedly  called  for.  Four  million,  eight  hundred  thous- 
and soldiers  and  sailors  were  summoned  and  placed  in 
the  ranks  of  the  army  and  navy.  The  difference  between 
the  supposed  greatest  needs  of  the  country  and  the  num- 
ber actually  required  was  4,300,000;  and  for  this  enorm- 
ous force  everything  required  by  an  army  or  a  soldier 
must  be  procured.  It  was  a  Herculean  task,  but  in  its 
results  well-fulfilled.  When  the  nation  called  for  men, 
24,234,021  appeared  at  the  appointed  places  and  regist- 
ered themselves. 

This  mighty  force  of  four  million  eight  hundred 
thousand  required  five  men  out  of  each  one  hundred 
citizens.  Sixty  per  cent  were  raised  by  selective  draft 
and  forty  per  cent  enlisted  as  volunteers.  They  were 
commanded  by  two  hundred  thousand  officers  secured  as 
follows :  three  per  cent  from  the  regular  army ;  six  per 
cent  from  the  national  guard;  eight  per  cent  by  promo- 
tion from  the  ranks;  thirteen  per  cent  from  civil  life; 
twenty-one  per  cent  were  medical  officers ;  and  forty- 
eight  per  cent  came  from  officers'  training  camps.  These 
last  forty-eight  per  cent  were  men  of  education  who  had 
volunteered  for  training  and  had  passed  the  required 
drill  and  examinations  in  officers'  schools. 

Officers  and  men  were  then  placed  in  sixteen  large 
canvas  camps  in  the  South  and  sixteen  cantonments  or 
barracks  in  the  North,  and  given  intensive  and  special 
drill  for  their  overseas  work.  It  was  the  intention  of  the 
government  to  give,  six  months  training  in  this  country 
and  two  months  in  France,  and  the  men  who  were  in  the 
service  long  enough  did  receive  it. 

The  tactics  and  organization  of  the  new  army  were 
greatly  changed  from  those  used  in  the  Civil  War.    The 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  425 

tactics  were  simplified  and  every  extra  motion  cut  in 
order  to  speed  up  movements  in  the  field  under  rapid  fire 
guns.  The  new  organization  bothered  us  old  soldiers 
greatly  until  we  had  a  chance  to  study  it  out.  Of  old,  one 
hundred  men  made  a  company,  ten  companies  a  regiment, 
three  regiments  a  brigade,  three  brigades  a  division,  and 
three  divisions  an  army  corps.  Now,  under  the  new 
organization,  two  hundred  and  fifty  men  make  a  com- 
pany, four  companies  a  battalion,  three  battalions  a  regi- 
ment, and  about  nine  regiments  of  all  arms  a  division, 
twenty-eight  thousand  men — twice  the  size  of  a  German 
or  French  division  and  nearly  three  times  the  size  of  our 
old  ones. 

The  economy  in  officers  of  high  rank  in  this  new 
organization  is  apparent,  and  I  suppose  our  scarcity  of 
such  men  compelled  such  consolidation.  Under  the  old 
organization,  it  would  require  twenty-seven  colonels, 
nine  brigadier  generals,  and  four  major  generals  to  com- 
mand substantially  the  same  number  of  men  that  eight 
colonels,  one  brigadier  general,  and  one  major  general 
do  under  this  new  formation. 

A  division  is  now  the  lowest  complete  military  unit ; 
it  contains  every  sub-unit  required  in  modern  warfare, 
namely: 

Four  Regiments  of  Infantry, 

One  Brigade   (3  regiments)   Artillery, 

One  Regiment  Engineers, 

One  Trench  Mortar  Battery, 

One   Signal   Battalion, 

Tanks,  Wagon  Train,  Headquarter  Staff, 

Military  Police,  Medical  and  other  Units. 


426  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Six  such  divisions  make  a  corps,  and  three  to  five 
corps  an  army. 

Before  the  war  closed  fifty-three  such  divisions  had 
been  organized,  composed  of  troops  and  numbered  as 
follows : 

20  Divisions  of  Regulars,  Nos.  I  to  20, 

16  Divisions  of  National  Guards,  Nos.  26  to  42, 

Vj  Divisions  of  National  Army  Guards,  Nos.  76  to  93. 

Forty-two  of  these  divisions  crossed  the  sea.  These, 
with  various  unattached  units,  made  about  two  million 
men  who  did  duty  there.  The  remaining  2,000,000  never 
left  this  country  nor  saw  active  duty  of  any  kind.  This 
was  no  fault  of  the  enlisted  men;  as  a  rule  they  were 
anxious  to  be  sent  across  the  ocean. 

Of  the  forty-two  divisions  that  reached  France, 
twenty-nine  went  to  the  battle  front  and  participated  in 
combat  service  for  longer  or  shorter  periods,  the  1st 
division  the  longest,  six  and  one-half  months,  the  41st 
the  shortest,  only  a  few  days. 

Illustrative  of  the  fighting  spirit  of  the  A.  E.  F.  men 
who  crossed  the  sea,  is  the  fact  that  all  wished  to  see 
service  in  the  trenches.  So  disappointed  were  those 
whose  divisions  were  placed  on  S.  O.  S.  (Service  of 
supply)  duty  that  many  ran  the  risk  of  court  martial 
punishment  and  disgrace  by  being  A.  W.  O.  L.  (absent 
without  leave)  and  going  into  the  active  sectors  and 
participating  in  the  actual  fighting  there. 

This  became  so  great  a  disorganizing  disturbance  that 
General   Pershing   was   compelled   to   regulate   it  by   is- 


•      SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  427 

suing  an  order  that  ''trained  men,  as  a  special  reward  for 
good  service  behind  the  lines,  might  have  a  chance  to  go 
to  the  front  and  take  part  in  the  fighting." 

The  First  division,  composed  of  regular  soldiers  and 
commanded  by  General  Pershing,  was  the  first  to  cross 
the  ocean.  They  were  received  in  France  with  enthusiasm 
by  waiting  crowds  of  French  people.  This  division 
crossed  in  June,  1917,  went  into  line  in  October,  and  into 
active  sector,  April  25,   1918. 

This  entry  dates  the  commencement  of  the  two  hun- 
dred days  during  which  the  United  States  took  continuous 
part  in  the  combat  service  which  ended  November  nth 
when  the  Armistice  was  signed.  These  two  hundred  days 
will  always  be  known  in  history  as  the  period  of  the 
great  world  conflict  in  which  Germany  gathered  its  ut- 
most resources  to  crush  the  Allies  before  we  could  organi- 
ize  our  armies  and  cross  the  ocean  to  help.  It  was  a 
battle  that  drove  the  Allies  back  thirty-five  miles,  and  as 
we  anxiously  stood  around  the  bulletin  boards  and  noted 
the  constant  and  seemingly  irresistible  advance  of  the 
German  forces  it  appeared  to  us  that  they  were  sure  to 
succeed.  The  Allies'  only  hope  now  was  America,  and 
they  called  loudly  to  us  for  assistance. 

Our  reply  was,  "Send  us  ships  and  we  will  fill  them 
with  men."  Great  Britain  complied,  and  immediately 
occurred  the  greatest  transportation  of  troops  the  world 
ever  knew.  As  many  as  306,000  troops  were  carried 
across  the  ocean  in  one  month.  June,  19 18,  found  the 
tables  turned ;  the  German  drive  stopped,  and  the  Allies 
mustered  the  greater  number  of  troops.  What  would 
have  happened  had   the  United   States  not  entered  the 


428  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

war  at  this  time,  no  one  can  tell,  but  that  her  entry  into 
it  was  the  turning  point  in  the  great  conflict  is  undis- 
puted and  indisputable. 

This  result  was  attained  in  the  United  States  only  by 
the  combined  effort  and  heroic  work  of  the  patriotic 
people  at  home.  A  few  of  the  things  they  finally  accom- 
plished were :  A  million  dollars  an  hour  was  spent  for 
over  two  years — two  million  a  day  the  first  three  months, 
twenty-two  millions  a  day  the  next  year  and  forty-four 
millions  a  day  the  final  ten  months  closing  April,  1919, 
making  a  total  sum  of  twenty-two  billion  dollars.  In 
addition  to  this,  ten  billion  dollars  was  loaned  to  the  Al- 
lies. 

There  was  delivered  to  the  army  between  April  6, 
1917,  and  May  31,  1918,  13  months,  clothing  as  follows: 

Wool  socks,  131,800,000  pair. 

Under  shirts,  85,000,000. 

Under  drawers,  83,600,000. 

Shoes,  30,700,000  pair. 

Flannel  shirts,   26,500,000. 

Blankets,  21,700,000. 

Wool  coats,  13,900,000. 

Overcoats,  8,300,000. 
There  had  been  expended  in  constructing  buildings  for 
factories,  warehouses,  and  cantonments  for  soldiers 
enough  money  to  build  two  Panama  canals.  Our  engi- 
neers had  built  in  France  a  thousand  miles  of  standard 
gauge  railroad  and  five  hundred  and  thirty-eight  miles  of 
narrow  gauge  track ;  the  signal  corps  had  strung  a  thou- 
sand miles  of  wire,  and  forty  thousand  motor  trucks  were 
there  helping  the  war  along. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  429 

Greatest  work  of  all,  we  had  selected  and  called  into 
the  army  and  navy  four  million  eight  hundred  thousand 
men  with  two  hundred  thousand  officers ;  we  had  drilled, 
uniformed,  armed,  organized  into  divisions,  provisioned 
and  transported  across  the  Atlantic  ocean  over  two  mil- 
lion of  these  men  and  had  the  remainder  preparing  to  go 
when  needed. 

The  veterans  of  the  Civil  War  had  grave  fears  of 
what  would  happen  when  these  new  troops  of  ours  who, 
officers  and  men  alike,  had  never  been  in  battle,  came  to 
meet  the  disciplined  veteran  army  of  Germany.  We  re- 
membered with  well-enforced  apprehension  the  panic  of 
our  new  Federal  troops  at  Bull  Run,  the  huddled  mass 
of  uninjured  and  fear-struck  men  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tennessee  River  in  rear  of  Grant's  struggling  troops  at 
Pittsburg  Landing,  and  the  many  times  we  had  seen  new 
regiments  recoil  and  break  when  some  unexpected  event 
or  superior  force  was  encountered  at  the  front.  We  fully 
remembered  what  new  troops  had  done  in  the  past,  and 
we  were  anxious  to  know  what  these  new  troops  going 
to  France  might  do  when  they  got  there. 

It  was  not  that  new  troops  lacked  bravery,  because 
the  battle-stricken  men  of  Bull  Run  and  Pittsburg  Land- 
ing proved  they  did  not  by  afterwards  becoming  the  best 
of  soldiers.  As  a  usual  thing  the  reverse  was  true ;  the 
new  men  were  daring  to  recklessness,  and  many  times 
they  rushed  into  places  where  old  veterans  dare  not  fol- 
low. This  was  plainly  shown  when  our  boys  relieved 
the  French  at  Chateau  Thierry.  The  foreign  troops 
advised  our  marines  who  were  taking  their  places  "not  to 
go  up  a  certain  hill  because  many  nests  of  German  ma- 
chine guns  were  located  there." 


430  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Our  men  replied,  "If  that's  the  case,  that's  where  we 
are  going;  we  came  three  thousand  miles  to  find  those 
very  things."  And  they  went. 

There  was  nothing  strange  in  that  action.  It  is  char- 
acteristic of  new  troops  to  dash  into  dangerous  places, 
The  strange  and  unusual  thing  was  they  stayed.  They 
let  nothing  rush  them,  nothing  confuse  them,  nothing 
strike  them  with  battle  panic.  They  gave  a  victorious 
answer  to  the  doubt  we  had,  and  we  became  inordinately 
proud  of  them. 

What  was  true  of  our  men  here  at  Chateau  Thierry 
was  true  throughout  the  war.  They  fought  with  the  dash 
and  abandon  of  new  men  and — almost  miraculous  to  tell 
— the  steadiness  of  veterans ;  no  better  troops  fought  on 
either  front  than  they. 

Two  effective  causes  had  produced  this  most  desir- 
able result:  First,  the  intensive  drill  the  men  had  re- 
ceived, coupled  with  a  3000  mile  journey,  had  prepared 
their  minds  for  serious  and  dangerous  work.  Second, 
the  judicious  mixing  of  our  new  troops  with  the  veterans 
who  had  been  long  fighting  there.  It  was  proven  during 
our  Civil  War,  that  if  an  old  regiment  that  had  lost  as 
high  as  fifty  per  cent,  or  even  more  of  its  numbers,  was 
filled  up  with  new,  even  untrained  men,  nothing  of  its 
efficiency  was  lost — it  was  equal  to  a  full  regiment  of 
veterans. 

What  was  true  of  individual  soldiers  was  true  of 
military  units.  Our  men  at  first  were  placed  in  battle 
line  with  perhaps  a  veteran  French  regiment  on  its  right 
flank  and  an  old  British  regiment  upon  its  left ;  and  so 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  431 

long  as  the  veteran  regiments  held  their  ground  the  new 
regiment  would  stand — unless  it  was  all  yellow,  and  we 
did  not  send  any  yellow  regiments  across  the  sea. 

Section  II.     What  our  Boys  Did  "Over  There" 

The  line  of  battle  extending  through  Belgium  and 
France,  from  the  North  Sea  on  the  west  to  Switzerland 
on  the  east,  was  somewhere  from  three  to  four  hundred 
miles  long  as  it  lengthened  by  salient  angles  driven  by 
the  Teutonic  powers  into  the  territory  of  the  Allies,  or 
shortened,  as  these  drives  were  forced  back  and  the 
salients  smoothed  out. 

Of  this  long  battle  line  the  Americans  were  assigned 
to  the  right  wing,  next  to  Switzerland,  and  took  charge 
of  ten  kilometers  in  January,  1918;  twenty-six  in  Feb- 
ruary; twenty-eight,  in  March;  fifty,  in  May;  fifty-eight, 
in  June;  one  hundred,  in  July;  125,  in  August;  157,  in 
September ;  and  162  kilometers  in  October. 

When  the  Armistice  came  in  November  the  United 
States  was  holding  of  the  battle  front         22% 
The  British  19% 

The  French  and  Belgians  59% 


100 
Thus,  at  the  close  of  the  war,  the  United  States  held 
a  longer  battle  front  than  the  British  and  this  had  been 
true  since  August  of  that  year. 

By  March  18,  1918,  the  Germans,  having  concluded 
peace  with  Russia,  had  brought  all  their  troops  from 
that  front  to  the  Hindenburg  line.  Germany  there  con- 
centrated all  her  forces  to  break  the  Allies'  front,  cap- 


432  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

ture  Paris,  and  make  a  peace  with  France  and  Great 
Britain  before  the  Americans  came  in  any  great  numbers. 

Now  commenced  the  two  hundred  days'  battle  in 
which  our  American  troops  participated.  During  all  this 
time  there  was  fighting  somewhere  along  that  line;  and 
in  a  certain  sense  the  two  hundred  days  of  conflict  was 
one  battle.  But  military  authorities  have  during  this 
time  recognized  tactically  and  strategetically  thirteen 
contests  having  definite  local  objectives  and  more  or  less 
separate  movements.  Eleven  of  these  were  on  the  Franco- 
Belgian  front,  where  our  troops  principally  fought.  Five 
of  these  offensives  were  German  wherein  the  Germans 
made  the  attack  and  the  Allies  were  on  the  defensive.  In 
six  of  them  the  Allies  made  the  attack,  and  the  Germans 
the  defense. 

It  will  be  my  effort  herein  to  epitomize  only  the  main 
achievements  of  the  Americans  in  these  engagements,  as 
the  facts  came  to  us  by  telegraphic  news,  verified  stories 
and  official  reports.  These  so-called  major  movements 
have  been  given  different  names  by  various  authors  who 
have  written  concerning  them.  I  have  followed  the 
nomenclature  used  by  the  chief  of  the  statistical  branch  of 
the  general  staff  in  his  report  to  Secretary  of  War  Baker, 
because  I  think  it  the  most  lucid  and  understandable, 
and  also  as  one  that  in  no  way  disagrees  with  General 
Pershing's  report  to  the  same  authority. 

First,  in  order  of  telling  as  it  was  in  time  of  event, 
came  the  movement  of  the  Somme  (i),  March  21  to 
April  6,  so-called  because  it  was  fought  largely  along  the 
valley  of  that  stream,  and  its  objective  seemed  to  be  the 
city  of  Amiens  on  that  river. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS 


433 


GERMAN  OFFENSIVES   1918 

1.  Somme,  March  21  to  April  6. 

2.  Lys,  April  9  to  May  27. 

3.  Aisne,  May  27  to  June  I. 

4.  Noyon-Montdidier,  June  9  to   15. 

5.  Champaigne-Marne,  July  15  to  18. 


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AMERICAN  UNITS  DEFENDING  IN  ABOVE 

1.  Medical,  Engineers,  Air 2,200 

2.  Medical,    Air    500 

3.  Division  2  part  of  3  and  28 27,500 

4.  Division  1 27,000 

5.  Divisions  3,  42,  part  of  28 85,000 


434 


ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 


ALLIED   OFFENSIVES   1918 

1.  Aisne-Marne,  July  18  to  August  6. 

2.  Somme,  August  8  to  November  11. 

3.  Oise-Aisne,  August  18,  to  November  11. 

5.  St.  Mihiel,  September  12  to  September  16. 

6.  Meuse-Argonne,    'September    20   to    November    11. 


tfoll.n*fl 


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A.   E.   F.DIVISIONS   AND   MEN   ENGAGED   IN   ABOVE 

1.  Divisions  1,  2,  3,  4,  26,  38,  32  270,000 

2.  Divisions  29,  30,  part  of  33 54,000 

3.  Divisions  28,  32,  77 85,000 

4.  Divisions  27,  30,  37,  98 108,000 

5.  Divisions  3,  33,  35,  78,  91,  80,  24,   1,  2,  4,  5, 

28,  42,  82,  89,  90 550,000 

6.  Divisions   35,   37,   42,    77,    78,    79,   80,   82,    89, 

90,  91,  92.     6  Div.  in  Reserve 1,260.000 

Nos.-  5   and  6  were  American  Offensives. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  435 

The  attack  fell  on  the  ever  memorable  21st  of  March, 
1918.  The  Germans  had  been  two  months  preparing  for 
it.  They  had  invited  the  correspondents  of  all  leading- 
German  papers,  as  to  a  review,  to  witness  their  tri- 
umphant march.  They  crossed  the  Hindenburg  line  on  a 
fifty  mile  front  with  some  eighty  divisions  of  fighting 
men,  and  attacked  the  unprepared  Allies  with  overpower- 
ing force. 

I  use  the  term  unprepared  only  in  a  limited  sense. 
The  Allies  had  been  expecting  the  drive  and  had  done  all 
they  could  to  receive  it.  But  Germany  had  moved  her 
divisions  by  foot  to  this  front,  inarching  only  in  the  night 
and  hiding  in  the  woods  from  the  air  scouts  by  day,  so 
that  the  French  and  English  had  been  unable  to  decide 
where  the  blow  would  fall. 

The  inevitable  result  followed :  the  Allies  were  driven 
back,  sometimes  hastily,  sometimes  slowly.  Often,  where 
defensive  grounds  were  found,  they  contested  every  inch 
and  made  the  enemy  pay  dearly  for  the  ground  he  gained ; 
they  never  suffered  a  battle  panic,  they  never  permitted 
their  line  to  long  be  broken  and  never  lost  heart. 

At  this  desperate  stage  General  Foch  was  made  Com- 
mander-in-Chief of  all  the  Allied  forces,  and  General 
Pershing  placed  all  the  American  forces  at  his  disposal 
at  whatever  point  he  might  use  them.  This  action  thrilled 
both  France  and  America.  As  Rochambeau  had  placed 
himself  under  the  command  of  Washington  in  our  Revo- 
lution, so  now  Pershing  placed  himself  under  Foch;  and 
thus  upon  the  debt  that  the  United  States  owed  France 
the  first  payment  was  made. 


436  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Only  about  twenty-two  hundred  Americans  were 
engaged  in  this  battle  of  the  Somme,  and  these  were 
largely  medical  men  and  air  units.  The  only  Americans 
on  the  fighting  line  were  a  detachment  of  engineers  who, 
when  emergency  came,  threw  away  their  tools,  formed 
themselves  into  fighting  units,  and  attached  themselves 
to  General  Cavies'  scratch  brigade.  They  fought  the 
enemy  furiously  and  helped  hold  him  back  as  the  Allies 
slowly  retired  from  the  vicinity  of  St.  Quentin  to  near 
Noyon. 

Though  the  Allies  were  compelled  to  fall  back  before 
the  overpowering  German  forces  they  inflicted  far 
greater  loss  upon  their  enemies  than  they  suffered  them- 
selves. The  Americans  report  that  at  one  place  the  Ger- 
mans advanced  in  seven  successive  battle  fronts  or  waves, 
one  hundred  yards  apart  and  each  wave  ten  men  deep. 
The  slaughter  that  rapid  fire  and  machine  guns  would 
make  in  such  a  formation  must  have  been  fearful.  Our 
men  reported  that  they  were  sickened  at  the  shambles 
they  created. 

The  second  movement  was  on  the  Lys  from  April 
9th  to  May  27th.  The  Germans  having  supposedly  drawn 
the  major  fighting  forces  of  the  Allies  to  their  front  for 
the  defense  of  Amiens,  now  concentrated  a  new  attack  on 
the  river  Lys,  evidently  with  the  purpose  of  reaching 
Calais  if  possible.  The  principal  fighting  was  done  near 
the  village  of  Armentires,  the  name  of  which  place  is 
sometimes  used  to  designate  this  battle.  Only  five  hun- 
dred Americans  here  participated  in  the  battle  and  those 
were  air  units.  During  the  progress  of  this  engagement 
our  forces  were  also  in  active  combat  in  the  Toul  sector 
at  the  eastern  end  of  the  fighting  line. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  437 

On  April  ioth  the  Germans  there  made  a  raid  upon 
the  Americans  in  the  Toul  sector  of  the  battle  front  that 
had  been  given  the  Americans  to  hold.  The  Germans 
evidently  meant  to  try  the  temper  of  the  raw  American 
soldiers.  They  organized  a  special  force  of  shock  troops 
and  rehearsed  the  raid  for  two  or  three  weeks ;  their  ob- 
jective was  the  third  line  of  our  defense.  The  morning 
came.  The  Germans  opened  their  barrage  of  artillery, 
and  the  men  sprang  from  their  trenches  to  assault  our 
first  line ;  but  instead  of  penetrating  to  our  third  line  of 
defense  as  was  their  aim,  they  never  even  captured  the 
first.  The  Americans  without  waiting  rocket  signal  had 
opened  a  counter  barrage  and  sweeping  "no  man's  land" 
with  their  automatic  rifles  and  machine  guns  covered  it 
with  the  bodies  of  German  dead.  Their  own  loss  was 
slight. 

On  the  12th,  after  a  night  of  fearful  bombardment 
with  gas  shells,  the  enemy  tried  our  American  lines 
again,  and  failed!  Once  more  on  the  13th,  preceded  by 
intense  bombardment  of  high  explosives  and  gas  shells, 
with  picked  troops,  they  stormed  our  lines  only  to  be 
driven  back  after  terrific  hand-to-hand  fighting.  A 
fourth  time  they  attacked  on  the  14th,  with  picked  troops 
from  the  Russian  front ;  and  although  the  Americans 
were  outnumbered  they  once  more  repulsed  the  Germans 
and  drove  them  back  to  their  trenches. 

Rut  these  four  defeats  did  not  satisfy  the  Germans. 
They  now — so  prisoners  that  we  took  stated — prepared 
"to  teach  the  Americans  a  lesson" — the  object  of  the 
instruction  evidently  being  to  keep  them  out  of  future 
important  movements. 


438  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

On  the  20th  of  April,  having  carefully  prepared  for 
the  object  lesson,  with  a  body  of  men  that  outnumbered 
the  Americans — twelve  to  one  some  observers  said — with 
everything  frightful  in  their  military  store — liquid  fire, 
poison-gas,  and  rain  of  shells  of  all  calibers  and  composi- 
tions, the  Germans  fell  upon  a  mile  front  of  our  line  west 
of  Toul.  The  attack  was  given  with  such  suddenness 
and  desperation  that  the  Americans  were  compelled  to 
retire,  but  made  the  Germans  pay  dearly  in  loss  by  death 
for  every  inch  of  ground  they  left.  The  enemy  broke 
through  the  first  lines  and  captured  the  village  of  Seiche- 
prey,  but  the  Americans  returned,  recaptured  it,  and  be- 
fore the  next  morning  had  re-established  their  lines  as 
before  the  assault. 

As  the  Germans  gained  no  ground  in  all  the  fighting, 
as  they  failed  to  break  the  American  lines,  and  as  their 
battle  casualty  loss  was  in  a  ratio  of  three  Germans  to 
two  Americans,  the  "lesson"  did  not  show  the  result  the 
enemy  intended.  That  particular  course  of  instruction 
closed :  it  closed,  a  failure  from  the  German  standpoint, 
but  brilliantly  satisfactory  from  the  Allies'  outlook.  The 
French  said  the  Germans  "had  broken  their  noses"  in 
this  first  serious  fighting  with  the  Americans. 

The  third  general  offensive  May  27th  to  June  1st,  is 
designated  the  Aisne  from  a  river  upon  whose  banks  it 
was  largely  fought.  The  enemy,  having  failed  in  their 
rush  toward  Calais  and  having  drawn  as  many  of  the 
Allied  forces  as  possible  away  from  the  defense  of  the 
most  desirable  objective,  Paris,  now,  with  utmost  force 
and  every  means  available,  made  a  drive  for  that  city. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  439 

In  the  defense  of  this  movement  27,500  Americans  par- 
ticipated, namely,  the  2nd  division,  which  included  the 
marines,  and  part  of  the  3rd  and  28th. 

The  Germans  had  tested  to  their  satisfaction  the  fight- 
ing spirit  of  the  Americans  in  the  Toul  sector,  and  now 
the  Allies  also  deserved  a  like  demonstration.  Just  west 
of  Cantigny,  about  twenty  miles  southeast  of  Amiens,  the 
Germans  held  a  salient  that  it  was  desirable  to  flatten 
out,  and  the  Americans  were  purposely  given  the  task  of 
driving  the  enemy  from  it.  Prominent  French  officers 
were  stationed  where  they  could  see  the  assault,  and  vet- 
eran troops  were  placed  where  they  could  help  if  the 
Americans  got  into  too  deep  trouble.  But  our  boys  did 
not  need  any  help.  The  French  bulletin  reported,  "Amer- 
icans, supported  by  our  tanks,  brilliantly  occupied  a  salient 
along  a  front  of  two  kilometers  and  the  strongly  fortified 
village  of  Cantigny,  capturing  prisoners  and  war  mater- 
ials and  repulsing  counter  attack."  Cantigny  settled  for 
the  Allies  the  question  of  America's  fighting  spirit;  and 
the  next  time  General  Foch  called  them  it  was  to  a  point 
of  greater  danger  and  higher  honor. 

This  third  German  offensive  reached  high  water  mark 
May  31st,  at  which  time  they  were  in  force  on  the  direct 
road  to  Paris,  only  thirty-one  miles  from  it,  and  still 
progressing.  Loud  calls  for  help  were  sent  out ;  the  best 
men  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  was  the  military  de- 
mand. The  second  division  and  part  of  the  third  were 
among  those  within  reach,  and  after  the  American  records 
made  at  Seicheprey  and  Cantigny  they  were  deemed 
worthy.    They  were  loaded  upon  camions,  busses,  trucks, 


44o  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

anything,  and  rushed  to  the  front.  What  our  boys  did 
when  they  reached  the  front  would  take  volumes  to  tell 
and  I  have  not  pages  to  spare. 

Would  you  know  American  history  that  will  quicken 
your  blood,  get  General  Catton's  book,  "With  the  help 
of  God  and  a  few  marines,"  and  read  how  the  marines 
charged  Bois  de  Belleau  and  Boureschis,  and  carried 
them,  and  stayed  there  under  the  Germans'  fiercest  fire 
for  five  days,  sending  out  only  for  rations  and  ammuni- 
tion. You  will  also  learn  how  our  infantry  met  the 
French  troops  at  Chateau-Thierry,  which  for  days  had 
been  fighting  fiercely,  almost  hoplessly,  and  how  the 
American  officer  said  to  them  in  the  best  French  he  could 
muster,  "You  are  tired.  You  get  away.  Our  job,"  and 
how  cleanly  and  thoroughly  that  job  was  performed! 

The  German  drive  toward  Paris  was  stopped  upon 
that  line.  Not  another  mile  did  it  reach  toward  that  city. 
When  General  Foch  six  weeks  later  commenced  the  great 
counter-offensive,  the  Americans  were  still  given  the 
honor  they  here  won  of  covering  the  approach  to  the 
French  Capital. 

The  fourth  major  movement,  June  9th  to  15th,  is 
named  the  Noyon  Montdidier  drive,  because  on  a  line 
with  these  two  towns  the  Germans  advanced  their  forces. 
The  enemy,  held  back  on  the  Somme  River,  stopped  on 
the  Lys,  defeated  on  the  Aisne  and  Marne,  now  attempted 
to  reach  Paris  by  pushing  down  the  valley  of  the  Oise. 
They  were  compelled  to  fight  now  whether  they  wanted 
to  or  not.  General  Ludendorff  had  pushed  them  into  a 
salient  thirty-five  miles  deep  and  like  a  runner  with  a 
football  they  must  keep  going  or  the  game  would  be  lost. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  441 

Their  drives  demonstrated  their  decreasing  effective  force. 
(  >n  the  Somme  they  presented  a  battle  front  of  fifty 
miles,  on  the  Aisne  twenty-five  miles,  and  now  on  the 
Noyon-Montdidier  offensive  only  twenty  miles. 

Owing  to  the  fearful  battle  casualties  that  Germany 
had  invited  by  presenting  her  troops  in  mass  formation  to 
the  easy  slaughter  of  our  artillery,  machine  guns,  and 
rifle  fire,  she  was  rapidly  losing  her  fighting  men  and 
had  no  source  from  which  to  replenish  them.  The  Allies, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  fighting  in  open  formation  and 
were  receiving  constantly  increasing  reinforcements  from 
America.  General  Ludendorff  realized  that  it  was  now 
or  never  that  Germany  must  win.  It  was  a  forlorn  hope, 
because  he  poured  his  troops  in  unstinted  mass  for- 
mation upon  General  Foch's  forces  which  had  discovered 
his  stratagem  and  prepared  for  it.  For  six  days  the  con- 
flict raged ;  not  even  at  Verdun  was  there  such  desperate 
and  cruel  loss  of  life.  The  movement  ended  with  the 
Allies'  lines  impenetrated  and  the  Germans  in  possession 
of  a  few  more  miles  of  worthless  territory. 

During  all  this  fighting  the  divisions  of  the  American 
army  participated  with  the  French  and  British  wherever 
ordered,  and  always  with  credit  to  the  uniform  they  wore 
and  the  country  they  represented.  Not  until  after  this 
German  drive  had  been  stopped,  did  our  troops  have  any 
engagements  except  in  the  Toul  sector  and  Cantigny  that 
were  especially  their  own.  In  the  Montdidier  sector  on 
June  19th,  near  Cantigny — scene  of  former  success — 
they  stormed  some  German  trenches  and  machine  gun 
nests  that  prisoners  said  they  had  received  orders  to  "hold 
at  all  hazards,"  and  swept  them  clean  of  the  enemy.     In 


442  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

the  Marne  sector  they  kept  busy  about  Chateau  Thierry, 
and  made  some  brilliant  attacks  and  effective  reprisals. 

The  work  that  America  was  doing  in  France  now 
commenced  to  show.  English  papers  woke  up  to  the  fact 
and  called  their  readers'  attention  to  it.  The  correspon- 
dent of  the  London  Daily  Express,  in  a  week's  tour 
along  the  line  of  communications,  visited  docks  built  by 
American  labor  and  with  American  material,  traveled  on 
American  railways,  sent  telegrams  over  American  wires, 
telephoned  to  Paris  over  an  American  system  served  by 
"hello"  girls  from  the  United  States,  bought  stores  at 
American  shops,  and  motored  in  American  automobiles. 
On  a  journey  of  over  a  hundred  miles  he  was  never  more 
than  half  an  hour  out  of  sight  of  an  American  camp. 
There  were  American  towns  and  villages  of  wood  on 
both  sides  the  railway  line;  cavalry  depots,  remount  de- 
pots, casualty  clearing  stations,  hospitals,  all  of  the  para- 
phernalia of  war,  every  scrap  of  it  was  American. 

Notwithstanding  the  urgent  call  for  speed  in  the 
German  offensive,  General  Ludendorff  was  compelled  to 
take  one  whole  month  to  recuperate  his  forces  shattered 
in  the  last  offence  and  prepare  for  a  new  drive. 

Meanwhile,  to  break  the  nervous  strain  of  the  tedious 
waiting,  came  our  Fourth  of  July.  Never  before  was 
there  such  a  celebration  of  our  natal  day  as  this,  and 
probably  there  will  never  be  another  like  it.  Cities  in 
both  North  and  South  America  celebrated  with  heretofore 
untold  enthusiasm.  Across  the  ocean  in  every  town  of 
any  size  in  the  score  or  more  of  the  nations  alongside  of 
which  we  were  fighting,  the  Stars  and  Stripes  were  flying ; 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  443 

in  France,  not  a  city  or  town  or  hamlet  but  what  was 
overflowing  with  American  fervor,  patriotism,  and  speech. 

England  for  the  first  time  recognized  the  day  offi- 
cially. All  royalty  attended  the  celebration.  King  George 
cast  the  first  ball  over  the  plate  at  the  American  army  vs. 
navy  game,  and  for  the  first  time  since  America  became  a 
nation  a  British  Ambassador  (Lord  Derby)  spoke  at  a 
Fourth  of  July  celebration.  I11  that  speech  he  said  "Even 
if  we  had  not  been  Allies,  I  should  have  come.  I  say 
now  that  I  wish  to  thank  America  for  the  best  licking  we 
ever  got;  it  has  done  us  both  a  lot  of  good.  We  are 
grateful  to  you  because  that  licking  taught  us  how  to 
treat  our  children ;  it  is  the  reason  why  we  have  Australia 
and  Canada  and  even  South  Africa  fighting  beside  us 
today."  That  celebration  was  so  far-flung,  so  universal, 
and  so  enthusiastic  that  Hope  might  mark  it  the  Inde- 
pendence Day  of  the  World. 

At  last  after  the  Germans  had  spent  a  long  month  in 
repairing  losses,  gathering  ammunition,  assembling  new 
divisions,  and  refilling  old  ones,  General  Ludendorff  ad- 
vanced to  his  fifth,  last,  and  most  desperate,  drive,  and 
suffered  his  most  serious  defeat  on  the  French-Belgian 
front.  The  offense  No.  5  is  called  the  Champagne- 
Marne  movement,  July  15th  to  18th,  so-called  because 
fought  in  Champagne  and  partly  on  the  Marne  river. 

The  Crown  Prince  had  the  honor,  or  dishonor,  of  be- 
ing the  father  of  this  movement.  Tn  a  heated  discussion 
between  him  and  the  Kaiser  and  leading  generals,  as  to 
whether  Paris  or  the  sea  coast  should  be  the  objective  of 
the  next  drive,  the  Prince  had  won.  and  Paris  via  Chalons 
was  the  order  laid  down. 


444  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Look  at  the  map,  and  even  a  citizen  could  see  it  was 
grand  strategy  if  it  could  be  made  to  work.  Chalons  is 
not  far  from  St.  Mihiel  then  occupied  and  fortified  by 
the  Germans  and  in  direct  communication  with  their 
great  base  of  supply,  Metz.  It  is  also  on  a  direct  line 
between  St.  Mihiel  and  Chateau  Thierry.  Could  the 
Germans  push  their  forces  from  the  latter  place  to 
Chalons  they  would  have  a  large  force  of  the  Allies 
out-flanked  right  and  left,  and  a  pinching  process  could 
be  inaugurated  between  their  Chalons  and  St.  Mihiel 
armies  that  would  compel  the  Allies  to  get  out  of  the 
sack  as  best  they  could  or  surrender.  In  either  case 
long- fought- for  Verdun,  the  town  for  which  thousands 
of  men  had  been  sacrificed,  would  be  won  by  Germany, 
and  a  direct  road  toward  Paris  from  Metz  via  St.  Mihiel, 
Chalons,  and  Chateau  Thierry  secured. 

It  was  a  good  scheme  the  Crown  Prince — or  one  of 
his  underlings — hatched  out,  but  to  succeed  it  must  be  a 
surprise.  Divisions  were,  therefore,  moved  up  only  un- 
der cover  of  night.  The  battle  line  extended  from  Cha- 
teau Thierry  to  Rheims  and  some  distance  southeast  of 
that  city.  Victory  demanded  that  Rheims  be  captured  or 
the  movement  would  be  ruined.  The  desperate  attack 
was  made  on  July  15th  with  utmost  secrecy  and  with  the 
absolute  limit  of  Germany's  resources  and  strength.  It 
was  intended  to  be  a  complete  surprise  and  it  was,  but  the 
Germans  and  not  the  Allies  were  the  surprised  parties. 

The  Allies  had  some  time  before  captured  a  letter, 
written  by  one  of  Germany's  Imperial  household,  telling 
of  the  disagreement  before  mentioned  and  the  plans  per- 
fected.   As  a  further  stroke  of  good  luck,  on  the  14th  the 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  445 

Allies  captured  a  prisoner  who  told  them  where  all  Ger- 
man forces  were  placed  and  the  tactical  arrangements 
for  the  next  day,  even  to  the  time  the  barrage  would 
start,  how  long  it  would  continue,  and  the  moment  the 
troops  would  make  their  assault. 

With  this  information  in  hand,  the  Allies  knew  exactly 
what  to  do.  In  places  where  their  secondary  lines  were 
strong  they  withdrew  from  their  first  line  of  defense, 
leaving  only  a  few  men  who  voluntarily  dared  almost 
certain  death  to  keep  up  an  appearance  of  occupation,  and 
permitted  the  enemy  to  expend  their  ammunition  and 
tierce  energy  upon  almost  unoccupied  trenches.  Then 
when  they  had  passed  the  outer  line  flushed  with  sup- 
posed victory,  they  were  mowed  down  before  the  secon- 
dary line  in  great  numbers.  In  few  places  was  there  any 
retirement  along  our  line,  and  that  only  temporarily. 
When  three  days'  fierce  fighting  was  ended,  our  lines 
were  substantially  back  where  they  were  when  the  move- 
ment began.  The  Germans  had  been  driven  back,  every- 
where beaten,  and  LudendorfFs  great  western  offensive 
for  19 18  closed,  a  complete  and  final  failure. 

Eighty-five  thousand  Americans  participated  in  this 
defense,'  and  of  the  record  they  made  America  may  well 
be  proud.  They  most  soundly  whipped  some  of  Germa- 
ny's choicest  divisions,  until  even  the  Guard,  against  all 
precedent  in  Prussian  history,  refused  longer  to  attack. 
Here  an  American  commander  dared  court  martial  and 
disgrace  by  sending  his  superior  officer  the  following 
communication  :  "We  regret  being  unable  on  this  occasion 
to  follow  the  counsels  of  our  masters,  the  French,  but  the 
American  flag  has  been  forced  to  retire;  this  is  unendur- 


446  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

able  and  none  of  our  people  would  understand  our  not 
being  asked  to  do  whatever  is  necessary  to  repair  a  situa- 
tion so  humiliating  to  us  and  unacceptable  to  our  coun- 
try's honor.  We  are  going  to  counter  attack."  They  did 
counter  attack  and  more  than  recovered  lost  ground.  A 
multitude  of  such  incidents  could  be  and  should  be  re- 
corded, but  not  here. 

The  check  to  Ludendorfl  was  so  decisive,  the  result 
of  the  "surprise"  was  so  disastrous,  and  the  new  Ameri- 
can troops  had  shown  such  unexpected  fighting  efficiency, 
that  a  counter  offensive  by  the  Allies  against  the  Germans, 
which  had  not  been  contemplated  as  possible  before 
another  spring,  was  now  proposed.  General  Pershing 
warmly  recommended  it,  and  promised  two  hundred 
thousand  Americans  to  help  on  the  front  line.  As  to  the 
honor  of  this  unexpected  initiative  it  was  said,  "Foch 
gave  the  word  of  attack,  Petain  worked  out  the  plan,  and 
both  took  Pershing  at  his  word." 

The  first  assault  by  the  Allies  upon  the  Germans  was 
made  on  July  18th  in  the  Aisne-Marne  movement,  so 
called  because  it  was  commenced  at  the  river  Marne  and 
pushed  toward  the  Aisne.  The  strategy  of  the  move- 
ment as  agreed  upon  by  Foch,  Petain  and  Pershing  was 
designed,  if  possible,  to  trap  Ludendorff's  forces  in  the 
salient  he  had  driven  between  Soissons  and  Rheims  with 
its  apex  at  Chateau  Thierry.  If  General  Foch  could  suc- 
ceed in  pushing  his  army  across  the  mouth  of  the  salient 
there  presented,  the  Germans  would  be  caught  like  rats  in 
a  trap  of  their  own  making.  The  Allies  nearly  succeeded ; 
at  one  time  they  had  the  mouth  of  the  salient  closed  down 
to  less  than  ten  miles. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  447 

Ludendorff  early  comprehended  Foch's  plan  and  plac- 
ing his  best  divisions  at  the  two  angles  of  attack,  Sois- 
sons  and  Rheims,  immediately  commenced  retreating  as 
rapidly  as  possible.  He  succeeded  in  retreating,  but  not 
without  serious  loss  in  men,  who  were  pushed  into 
slaughter  without  mercy,  and  in  munitions  and  provisions 
that  were  either  destroyed  to  avoid  capture  or  taken  by 
the  Allies. 

The  Americans  made  the  longest  advance  of  any 
troops  involved :  from  Chateau  Thierry  where  they 
started  July  18th  to  Fismes  where  they  drove  the  Germans 
across  the  Vesle  river  on  August  3rd  is  forty  kilometers. 
This  represents  an  amount  of  marching  and  fighting, 
difficult  if  not  impossible  to  describe  here,  or  to  tell  either 
in  print  or  out  of  print. 

General  Foch,  having  flattened  out  the  Soissons- 
Rheims  salient  and  thoroughly  started  the  Germans  in  a 
retreat  on  that  front,  now  left  enough  of  his  troops  fol- 
lowing them  to  see  that  they  kept  moving  in  the  right 
direction  and  then  struck  his  second,  the  Somme  offensive, 
in  the  Somme  River  valley. 

Here  as  on  the  Marne,  the  blow  was  a  surprise  to  the 
enemy,  and  a  success  to  us.  After  the  first  day's  advance 
the  air  men  reported  lines  of  transports  going  to  the  rear 
carrying  what  munitions  the  Germans  could  save,  fires 
burning  supplies  which  could  not  be  transported,  and  a 
general   German  retreat  everywhere. 

The  Cantigny-Montdidier  salient  was  wiped  out. 
Peronne  and  Noyon  were  recovered,  and  the  advance 
continued  with  more  or  less  regularity — not  stopping 
even   for  the   Hindenburg  line — until   the   Armistice  of 


448  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

November  nth  called  a  halt  on  the  farthest  line  of  ad- 
vance. Fifty-four  thousand  Americans  were  engaged  in 
this  offensive,  and  they  fully  maintained  the  brilliant 
record  of  gallant  fighting  set  for  them  by  their  comrades 
on  the  Marne. 

General  Foch,  having  struck  one  stinging  blow  with 
his  right  on  the  Marne  river,  July  18th,  and  another  with 
his  left  in  the  Somme  Valley  on  August  8th,  now  on 
August  1 8th  struck  a  double  offensive:  the  Oise-Aisne  on 
the  right  of  his  battle  front,  a  continuation  of  the  Aisne- 
Marne  movement  and  called  the  third  offensive;  the 
Ypres-Lys  on  the  Lys  River  nearly  at  his  extreme  left, 
counted  as  the  fourth  offensive.  Both  these  offensives, 
like  the  two  that  preceded,  were  successful  beyond  all 
expectation.  By  September  5th  the  troops  of  the  four 
offensives  had  extended  and  connected  their  wings  until 
they  were  all  smashing  forward,  a  united  battle  front  one 
hundred  and  forty  miles  long,  reaching  nearly  from  the 
Lys  to  the  Marne.  Almost  everywhere  before  the  whole 
line  the  enemy  had  given  way  and  was  retreating  before 
it. 

Nor  did  the  line  slow  down  its  battle  rush  until  eight 
weeks  to  a  day  after  Foch's  counter  offensive  began  on 
the  Marne.  When  the  September  torrential  rains  flooded 
the  low  lands  and  made  moving  practically  impossible,  the 
Germans  had  been  driven  back  to  the  Hindenburg  line, 
and  the  Allies  had  captured  a  large  part  of  that  sup- 
posedly impenetrable  defense.  Eighty-five  thousand 
Americans  fought  on  the  Oise-Aisne  and  a  hundred  and 
eight  thousand  in  the  Ypres-Lys  movement.  It  is  enough 
to  say  they  all  fought  like  Americans. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  449 

From  the  month  of  March  when  General  Pershing 
put  the  American  forces  at  General  Foch's  disposal,  until 
September,  they  had  been  mixed  with  veteran  British  and 
French  troops.  Now  they  had  become  veterans  them- 
selves. They  had  proved  their  steadiness  and  reliability 
upon  so  many  fields  that  the  time  for  segregation  had 
come.  They  were  drawn  from  other  fronts  and  con- 
centrated in  the  Toul  sector  under  the  command  of  Gen- 
eral Pershing. 

The  St.  Mihiel  salient,  near  which  this  American  army 
was  thus  gathered,  had  been  driven  into  the  French  ter- 
ritory in  19 14,  and  the  Germans  had  occupied  it  all  this 
time,  fortified  it  to  the  best  of  their  ability  and  had  main- 
tained it  for  four  years  despite  all  French  efforts  to 
extract  this  thorn  from  their  side.  The  reduction  of  this 
salient  was  the  Allies'  fifth  offensive  and  the  task  was 
given  to  the  Americans  to  perform.  It  was  to  be  an  all- 
American  movement  in  the  sense  that  it  was  planned 
and  commanded  by  American  officers  and  mainly  fought 
by  American  soldiers — the  Allies  giving  a  helping  hand  to 
us  here  as  we  had  to  them  elsewhere. 

The  attack  was  made  all  along  the  line  on  the  morning 
of  the  1 2th  of  September.  At  one  o'clock  the  bombard- 
ment of  the  enemy  commenced,  at  four  minutes  of  five 
our  barrage  opened  one  continuous  roar,  and  at  five  our 
forces  "went  over  the  top."  The  result  was  our  usual 
story  of  success.  Every  objective  was  made  on  time.  The 
supposedly  untakable  fortifications  around  St.  Mihiel  and 
the  city  of  St.  Mihiel  itself  were  captured  the  first  day, 
and  before  the  15th  the  whole  salient  was  practically 
wiped  out. 


150  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

Thirteen  thousand  prisoners  were  taken.  Cannons, 
machine  guns,  tons  of  ammunition,  and  war  stores  in  great 
quantities  were  a  part  of  the  profit  gathered.  But  the 
greatest  beneficial  result  was  the  demonstration  of  what 
a  movement  commanded  by  American  officers  and  fought 
mainly  by  American  troops  could  accomplish.  So  satis- 
factory was  the  work  of  the  American  forces  that  they 
were  given  immediately  a  still  greater  task  to  perform 
alone :  this  was  the  Meuse-Argonne  offensive,  No.  6. 

In  this  movement  a  sector  was  given  to  our  men  lying 
mostly  behind  the  Hindenburg  line  that  had  been  since 
1914,  and  still  was,  occupied  and  fortified  by  the  Ger- 
mans. This  sector  formed  an  acute  triangle,  with  its 
base  extending  from  the  Argonne  Forest  east  about 
twenty-five  miles,  and  reaching  to  and  across  the  Meuse 
River,  with  its  apex  at  Sedan  thirty-five  miles  distant. 
General  Pershing  was  given  thirty-five  divisions  of  Amer- 
icans and  some  French  Colonial  troops  to  clean  the  Ger- 
mans out  of  this  strongly  fortified  position.  The  French 
Fourth  Army  also  had  a  sector  given  immediately  upon 
our  left  with  the  same  objective,  Sedan,  in  view.  Thus 
commenced  a  friendly  rivalry,  lasting  through  forty-seven 
days  of  battle,  as  to  which  force  would  first  reach  that 
battle-noted  city. 

The  attack  was  made  by  both  forces  upon  the  morning 
of  September  20th,  and  on  the  7th  of  November  both 
armies  reached  the  Meuse  River  opposite  Sedan  so  nearly 
at  the  same  time  that  it  is  impossible  to  state  whether 
the  American  or  the  French  first  saw  that  objective,  but 
the  French  first  succeeded  in  crossing  the  Meuse  River 
and  entering  the  city. 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  451 

On  October  10th,  the  Americans  got  through  the 
Krimhilde  line  on  a  front  of  four  miles,  and  smashed  the 
last  organized  defense  west  of  the  Meuse  River.  They 
were  still  pushing  toward  the  Belgian  frontier  when  the 
Armistice  stopped  their  progress. 

Even  had  I  limitless  space  and  unlimited  ability  it 
would  be  impossible  to  ascertain  and  record  the  many 
feats  of  gallantry,  bravery,  and  devotion  that  our  boys 
displayed  here  and  elsewhere.  General  Foch's  words 
given  to  an  audience  of  American  correspondents  on 
January  15,  1919,  and  meant  for  the  whole  American 
people,  epitomizes  their  achievements. 

"This  is  for  me  a  happy  opportunity  to  tell  you  all 
the  good  things  I  think  of  the  American  Army  and  the 
part  it  played  on  our  side.  Your  soldiers  are  superb. 
They  came  to  us  young,  enthusiastic,  and  carried  forward 
by  a  vigorous  idealism,  and  they  marched  to  battle  with 
admirable  gallantry — yes,  they  were  superb,  there  is  no 
other  word.  When  they  appeared,  our  armies  were,  as 
you  know,  fatigued  by  three  years  of  relentless  struggle 
and  the  mantle  of  war  lay  heavily  upon  them.  We  were 
magnificently  comforted  by  the  vitality  of  your  Ameri- 
cans. The  youth  of  the  United  States  brought  a  renewal 
of  the  hope  that  hastened  victory.  Not  only  was  this 
moral  aid  of  the  greatest  importance,  but  you  also  brought 
material  aid,  and  the  wealth  which  you  placed  at  our 
disposal  contributed  to  the  final  success.  No  one  among 
us  will  ever  forget  what  America  did,  and  you  know 
what  happened  on  the  field  of  battle  since  July :  first  the 
Marne,  then  in  the  region  of  Verdun.  General  Pershing 
wished  as  far  as  possible  to  have  his  army  concentrated 


452  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

in  an  American  sector.  The  Argonne  and  the  heights  of 
the  Meuse  was  a  sector  hard  to  tackle,  there  were  con- 
siderable obstacles  there.  'All  right,'  I  said  to  him,  'your 
men  have  the  devil's  own  punch,  they  will  get  away  with 
all  that,  go  to  it,'  and  finally  everything  went  well.  Every- 
thing went  so  well  that  we  are  here  on  the  Rhine." 

April  pthf  1865,  and  November  nth,   19 18! 

Few  men  in  their  maturity  have  the  privilege  of 
participating  in  two  such  events ;  the  first  closed  the 
Civil  War  at  Appomattox  Court  House  and  the  last 
silenced  thousands  of  heavy  guns  along  the  far-flung 
battle  front  in  western  Europe.  Two  great  days  termi- 
nated two  great  wars,  but  they  were  as  different  in  their 
control,  their  happenings,  and  their  surroundings  as  a 
prayer  meeting  and  a  4th  of  July  celebration.  The  first 
was  quiet  and  almost  sad.  A  few  officers  met  in  McLean's 
cottage  at  Appomattox  where  the  victors  dictated  gener- 
ous terms  to  the  vanquished  foe.  Outside,  the  two  ar- 
mies stood  in  full  view  of  each  other.  From  the  moment 
that  peace  had  seemed  possible,  in  order  to  prevent  need- 
less loss  of  life,  not  a  gun  had  been  fired.  When  the  re- 
sult was  known,  the  defeated  Confederates  silently  and 
tearfully  laid  down  their  arms,  while  through  the  Union 
ranks  not  a  salute  was  fired,  not  a  cheer  was  raised.  This 
silence  and  immobility  was  broken  only  when  the  victors 
opened  their  haversacks  to  the  famishing  vanquished  and 
bade  them  share  their  contents. 

In  the  European  war  the  end  was  dramatic  and  tragic 
in  the  extreme.  In  the  morning  the  officers  on  both  sides 
knew  that  the  armistice  would  begin  at  eleven  o'clock, 
but  the  rank  and  file  knew  only  that  their  orders  were  to 


SOME  FINDINGS  OF  THREE  WARS  453 

attack  at  eight  o'clock.  They  obeyed.  They  rushed  for- 
ward against  wire  entanglements,  deep  trenches,  and  the 
fierce  firing  of  the  enemy :  they  met  death,  suffering,  and 
life-lasting  wounds  for  three  hours,  while  officers  stood 
with  watches  in  their  hands  waiting  for  the  prescribed 
hour.  At  five  minutes  of  eleven  the  battle  was  raging  ac 
fiercely  as  at  any  time  during  the  war.  Heavy  guns  were 
bombarding  distant  objectives,  light  artillery  was  sweep- 
ing many  a  barrage,  trench  mortars,  rifle  fire,  machine 
guns,  and  hand  grenades  were  still  searching  far  too  suc- 
cessfully their  victims.  Eleven  o'clock  came — and  dead 
silence — a  silence  more  startling  and  unexpected  to  the 
men  in  the  ranks  than  the  previous  storm  had  been.  What 
could  it  mean?  The  astonished  soldier  looked  in  amaze- 
ment for  a  reason.  At  five  minutes  past  eleven  runners 
had  rushed  the  news,  "The  war  is  over."  Salvos  of  re- 
joicing burst  forth.  "The  landscape  was  filled  with 
cheering  men ;  no  Fourth  of  July  ever  saw  such  fireworks 
as  those  red,  green,  and  blue  streaks  across  that  foggy 
sky."  "One  minute  before  eleven  it  would  have  meant 
death  to  show  one's  self  above  shelter — not  more  than  a 
minute  after  the  hour  the  rolling  plain  was  alive  with 
cheering,  shouting,  care-free  men."* 

This  ending  was  dramatic  to  its  utmost  limit,  but  was 
it  worth  all  the  death  toll  and  life-enduring  wounds  caused 
by  the  three  hours'  needless  fighting  along  hundreds  of 
miles  of  battle  front?     "Sabe  Dios,  ah!  God  knows." 

♦This  account  of  the  way  the  men  at  the  front  received  the 
armistice  is  probahly  based  on  newspaper  reports,  and  may 
have  been  true  for  some  sectors,  but  it  was  by  no  means  true 
generally.  In  some  places  the  men  knew  beforehand  that  an 
armistice  had  been  signed  and  that  it  would  go  into  effect  at 
eleven  o'clock.  In  some  it  was  ordered  that  there  should  be  no 
demonstration.  In  regard  to  the  fireworks,  the  most  frequent 
testimony  I  get  is  that  when  evening  came  the  men  simplv  shot 
off  what  ammunition   they  had. — F.  R.  C. 


454  ONE  MAN'S  LIFETIME 

No  more  fitting  tribute  to  the  men  who  made  Ameri- 
ca's record  for  valor  across  the  sea,  or  more  effective  con- 
clusion to  the  history  they  made,  can  here  be  given,  than 
the  following  consolidated  record  of  each  division's  serv- 
ice. This  record  shows  the  days  they  were  on  both  quiet 
and  active  sectors,  the  offensives  participated  in,  kilo- 
meters advanced,  prisoners  captured,  casualties  suffered, 
death  losses  endured,  and  replacements  from  all  causes. 

I  have  taken  great  pains  to  compile  it  from  the  most 
authoritative  sources,  and  believe  it  to  be  substantially 
correct.  That  it  should  be  absolutely  correct,  is  an  im- 
possibility, for  facts  will  be  developing  for  years  that  will 
make  slight  changes  therein.  Such  as  it  is,  I  dedicate  it 
to  those  recorded  in  the  column  of  "Battle  Deaths." 


BATTLE  RECORD 

Of  Each  Division  that  Reached  the  France- Belgium  Front 

Regular  Army 


> 

Days  in 

Sector     Offensive  Participated  in 

Kilometers 

Prisoners 

C&suaJtics 

Battle 

Replacem't 

Q 

Quiet 

Active          German 

Allies 

Advanced 

Captured 

Deaths 

all  Causes 

1 

127 

93        4 

1-5-6 

51 

6,469 

23,345 

4,204 

30,206 

2 

71 

66        3-5 

1-5-6 

60 

12,026 

25,076 

4,419 

35,343 

3 

0 

86        3-5 

1-5-6 

41 

2,240 

18,154 

3,102 

24,033 

4 

7 

38 

1-5-6 

24y2 

2,756 

14,183 

2,598 

19,599 

5 

71 

32 

1-5-6 

29 

2,356 

9,883 

1,908 

12,611 

6 

40 

0 

12 

567 

97 

2,784 

7 

31 

2 

6 

1 

69 

1,818 

302 

4,112 

National  Guard 


26 

14S 

45 

1-5-6 

37 

3,148 

15,168 

2,168 

14,411 

27 

0 

58 

2-4 

11 

2,357 

11,218 

1,791 

5,355 

28 

31 

49        3-5 

1-3-5-6 

10 

921 

16,277 

2,531 

21,717 

29 

59 

23 

6 

7 

2,187 

6,159 

940 

4,977 

30 

0 

56 

2-4 

29% 

3,848 

11,082 

1,652 

2.384 

32 

GO 

35 

1-3-6 

36 

2,153 

13,884 

2,898 

20,140 

33 

32 

27 

2-5-6 

36 

3,987 

9,253 

1,002 

5,413 

35 

92 

5 

5-6 

12V2 

781 

7,854 

960 

10,605 

36 

0 

23 

6 

21 

549 

2,710 

591 

3,397 

37 

50 

11 

4-6 

30% 

1,495 

5,923 

992 

6,282 

42 

125 

39        5 

5-6 

55 

1,317 

16,005 

2,713 

17,253 

National  Army 


77           47 

66 

3-6 

17i/2 

750 

11,596 

1,992 

12,718 

78          17 

21 

5-6 

21 

432 

8,159 

1,359 

3,190 

79           28 

17 

6 

191/2 

1,077 

7,590 

1,396 

6,246 

80             1 

17 

5-6 

38 

1,813 

6,763 

1,141 

4,495 

81          31 

0 

51/2 

101 

1,051 

250 

1,984 

82          70 

27 

5-6 

17 

845 

8,228 

1,338 

8,402 

88          28 

0 

3 

90 

27 

731 

89          55 

28 

5-6 

48 

5,061 

8,813 

1,419 

7,669 

90          42 

26 

5-6 

28i/2 

1,876 

8,010 

1,387 

4,437 

91           15 

14 

4-5-6 

34 

2.412 

6,496 

1,390 

12,530 

92          51 

2 

6 

8 

38 

1,680 

185 

2,920 

Other  Uni 

its           1-2- 

3-4-5     1-2-3-4-5-6 

6,471 

2,170 

INDEX 


457 


Abolitionist,  in  army,  250. 

Acoma,  Pueblo  of,  74,  190;  Cathedral 
of,    192. 

Adamana  Reservation,  187. 

Adobe,  pueblo  of,  75,  199;  as  building 
material,    198. 

Agriculture  of    Pueblo   Indians,   72. 

Aistie   offensives,    438,   446. 

Albuquerque,  Indian  exhibit  at,  68; 
business  block,  193;  hotel  and  depot, 
194;   Rio   Grande  River  at,  203. 

Alkali,  poisoned  cattle,  163. 

American,  units  in  World  War,  433; 
labor   and   supplies,   442. 

Anti-Nebraska  men,   244. 

Anti-slavery,    244. 

Apache    Indians,    25. 

Appomatox  Court  House,  265,  393, 
452. 

Arapahoe    Indians,   27,    38. 

Arkansas   River,    11,    15,    29. 

Armv,  sense  of  honor,  270;  recruiting 
fof,   313. 

Atlanta,    37-2. 

Ax.    stolen,    61. 

Baking,    in    the  ashes,  20. 

Banks,    139. 

Battle,  of  Hull  Run,  312,  335;  Wilson's 
Creek,  :::;<;;  Pea  Ridge,  339;  Pittsburg 
Landing,  342;  Farmington,  348; 
(hickamauga,  362;  Gettysburg,  365; 
Nashville,  374;  Wilderness,  375;  a 
losing,  383;  Five  Forks,  392;  losses, 
nil,  419;  of  Manila  Bay,  407;  line, 
in  World  War,  431;  casualties,  of 
Germans,  438;  record  of  Americans, 
455. 

Bear    hunt,    167. 

Beauty,   a  pony,   55. 

Belleau  Wood,   440. 

Bennett,    Horace,    387. 

Bent,   William,   13. 

Bent's  Fort,    11,   27,  38,  63. 

Bible  and   slavery,   219. 

Big   Timbers,    12,    27. 

Bill   of  fare,   Pueblo   Indian  dinner,    70. 

"Birth   of  a   Nation,"   278. 

Black   Code,   272. 

Blackhawk  War,  49. 

Black   Kettle,   Indian  chief,   40. 

Black  Partridge,  chief,  88,  89. 

Blair,   Governor  of  Michigan,  355. 

Blanco,    General,   403,  412. 

Blanket    Indians,    29. 

Blizzards,    125. 

Blue  and  Gray,  mutual  respect,  241. 

Boulder,    166. 

Boston,  slaves  in,  213. 

Bragg,   General,   361. 

Bright   Angel   Trail,    184. 

Buell,   General,   343. 

Buffalo,  numbers  of,  killed,  63;  hunting, 
56,    1")7;    grass,    151. 

Buffalo  Bill,  58. 


Bull   Run,   battle  of,  312,   335. 
Bureau,  Indian,  47;   Freedmen's,  267. 
Burnap,    personal   history   of,   5,    16,    26, 

52,    77,   80,   85,   92,   97,   112,    119,   141, 

162,     167,     178,     184,     280,     309,     313, 

330,  336,  347,  365,  376,  396. 
Burnside,    General,    361. 
Buster,    grandson,    85. 
Butler,   General,    248,    253,    268,    342. 
California,     Trail,     147;     irrigation     in, 

202;    eastern   money  in,    205. 
Campaign,    of    1861,    331;    of   1862,    339; 

of   1863,    358;    of   1864,   371;    of   1865, 

390. 
Camps,      of      plainsmen,      19,      58;      in 

Spanish-American    War,   406. 
Canal,  Illinois  and   Michigan,  94. 
Cantigny,   439. 
Carver,    Captain,    47. 
Cathedral,  at  Acoma,  74;  at  Laguna,  76. 
Carroll,    Richard,    262. 
Cattle,     stampede,     161;      poisoned     by 

alkali,    164. 
Cavalry,  escort,  18,  22;  charge,  348;  see 

Second. 
Cervera,    Admiral,    410. 
Charcoal   burning,   178. 
Charge,    at    Farmington,    348. 
Charity    work   for   negroes,    292. 
Charley,   23,    154. 

Champagne-Marne  movement,   443. 
Chateau  Thierry,   429. 
Chattanooga,   345,   358,   361,   372. 
Cheyenne,  Indians,  27,  38;  city  of,   161. 
Chicago,    massacre,     85;     water    supply, 

102;    fire,    104. 
Chicago  and  Northwestern  Railway,  45, 

113. 
Chickamauga,  battle  of,  362. 
"Chickasaw,"    see   Naron. 
Chivington,  Colonel  J.  M.,  40. 
Churches,   of  negroes,   281. 
Civil    War,    Chapter    XVII,    309;    com- 
parative   death    losses    in,    401;    close, 

453. 
Cochiti,    pueblo    of,    77. 
Coffles   of  slaves,   232. 
Colonel,  Confederate,  captured  by  negro 

soldiers,    254. 
Colorado,    governor    of,    40;    see    Grand 

Canyon. 
Comanche   Indians,    18. 
Commissions,    in    Civil    War    vs.    Great 

.War,    377. 
Community  House,  at  San  Domingo,  75. 
Company  I,  2nd  Iowa  Cav.,   377. 
Compass    plant,    145. 
Concentration,   of  Cubans,   402. 
Confederate,      States,      247;     recruiting, 

323;   battle   line,    332;    prisoners,   388; 

soldiers   as   slackers,    394;    Decoration 

Day,    307. 
Conversation   of  Indians,   30. 
Coon,    Colonel    D.    E.,    370. 
"Copperheads,"   327, 


458 


INDEX 


Corinth,  344,  347. 
Coronado,  15,  67. 
Correspondents,  newspaper,  with  armies, 

415. 
Cost,  of  keeping  a  slave,  236;  Civil  War 

vs.   Great  War,   376,  428. 
Costume   of   Pueblo   woman,   73. 
Cotton,     and     slavery,     218;     raised    by- 
negroes,   283. 
Council   Bluffs,    144,   146. 
Court    House,     of     Chicago:     first,     92; 

second,    96;    third,    99;    fourth,    103; 

fifth,   105;   sixth,   106. 
Court,    testimony   in,    by    negroes,    275. 
Cowboy,   16. 

"Crackers"   of  the   South,   317. 
Crown    Prince,    443. 
Cuba,    annexation   of,    311;    soldiers   of, 

400;   reorganization  of,   416. 
Cumberland   River,    340. 
Currency,   Pueblo,   71;    pioneer,   139. 
Dances,  of  Indians,  31. 
Davenport,    Sioux   Indians   at,   33. 
Declaration       of       Independence       and 

slavery,    215. 
Delinquents,  negro,  289. 
Democracy,    of  Pueblo  Indians,    75. 
Democratic    Party,   split   by   Dred    Scott 

decision,     245;     opposed     Freedmen's 

Bureau,   268;    split  on  war,    327. 
Denver     in     1859,    109,      166;      English 

tourist  at,   195. 
Desert,  the  "Great  American,"  52. 
Destruction,   by  emigrants,  38,   62. 
Detached    duty,    378. 
Dewey,   Admiral,   407. 
Disease,     Indian    fear    of,     36;     in    the 

army,    337;   losses,   401. 
Disloyalty   in    North,   328. 
Donelson,    Fort,    340. 
Douglas,   Stephen  A.,  243,  327. 
Dred    Scott   case,    245. 
Drinking,     by    railroad     men,     113;     by 

pioneers,    138. 
"Dudah"  gravy,  128. 
Eastern  money  in  California,  205. 
Eastman,  Doctor,  31. 
Economic  basis  of  slavery,   214. 
Education,    of   Indians,   32;    of  negroes, 

271,    281,    304. 
Election,    of    1856,    245;    of    1860,    246, 

327. 
Elks'  House  at  Santa  Fe,  196. 
Elliott,  General,  354. 
Emancipation,      217;      forbidden,      228; 

Proclamation,    248. 
Emigrants,    destruction    by,    38,    62. 
Enchanted  Mesa,   190. 
England,  did  not  recognize  slavery,  212. 
Enlistment,  in  Civil  War,  313;   Spanish- 
American  War,   405. 
Erosion    in    Grand    Canyon,    182. 
Farmington,   charge  at,   348. 
Fine   Art   Building,    Santa   Fe,   192. 
Fire,    alarm    by    bell,    100;    in    Chicago, 

104;    on    prairie,    132. 
Five   Forks,   battle   of,   392. 


Fleet,    in   Manila    Bay,    407;    Cervera's, 

410. 
Foch,    General,    435,    451. 
Food,   of  Indians,   24. 
Fording   streams,    131. 
Fourth  of  July,   36,  442. 
Fraternizing,    between    former    enemies, 

395. 
Freedmen,  and  the  Black  Code,  272. 
Freedmen's  Bureau,   267. 
Freedom,      how     received,      257,      265; 

worse    for    negro    than    slavery,    296. 
Fremont,    General,   52,    248,    268. 
Frijoles,     Rio     de    Los,     77;     eaten     in 

Yucatan,   78. 
Fugitive   Slave  Act,   239,   242,    309. 
Funston,    General,    400. 
Galena    and    Chicago    Railroad,    94,    97, 

112. 
Galveston,  negroes  in,  293. 
George,   36,    167. 

German,  citizens,   421;   methods  of  sub- 
marine  warfare,    422;    offensives,   433. 
Gettysburg,   battle  of,   364. 
Gold,  at  Pike's  Peak,  143,  165. 
Goldsboro,    390. 

Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,   396. 
Grand  Canyon,  17,  181,  183. 
Grant,     General,     268;     nominated     for 

president,   330;   in  Tennessee,  340;    at 

Pittsburg  Landing,  343;  at  Vicksburg, 

356,    358;    in    command   of   all    Union 

armies,   371,   391. 
Great    American    Desert,    52,    146,    150, 

180. 
Great  Mystery,  of  Indians,  28,  37,  51. 
Great  War,   see   World   War. 
"Greenwood    Volunteers,"    320. 
Grierson,   Colonel,   366;   General,  379. 
Halleck,   General,   344,  354. 
Hammett,   Ben,    387. 
Hartman,   Serg.    John   F.,   387. 
Hatch,    Colonel,    369,    385, 
Heald,  Captain,  89. 
Helm,    Mrs.,    88. 
Henry,   Fort,  340. 
Hokona,    191. 

Honor,  of  Indians,  48;  in  army,  270. 
Hood,  General,   373,  385. 
Hopi,  Building,  74;  Point,  183;  style  of 

architecture,    191. 
Horton,    Colonel,    387. 
Hospitality,   of  Indians,   24,  32,   48,   61; 

of    pioneers,    130,    156. 
Hours  of  work  for   slaves,   224,   237. 
"How,"   Indian   greeting,    24,   60. 
Howard,  General   O.   O.,   269,   318. 
Hunting,    buffalo,    157;    bear,    169. 
Illinois  a  free  state,   229. 
Illiteracy,      of     negroes,      288;      of     the 

"crackers,"    317. 
Improvidence,  of  negroes,  291. 
Indian,     Passing    of    the,     Part    I,    11; 

strategy,   23;   numbers   of  the,   45. 
Inkpaduta,   43,   143. 
Institution    of    slavery,    209;    controlled 

the  master,  2g0;  mistakes  of  the,  242. 


INDEX 


459 


Iowa,  land  sale,  115;   winter,   124. 

Irrigation,    29,    201. 

Jackson,   Andrew,   318. 

Jackson,   Helen  Hunt,   41. 

Jackson,    Mississippi,    293. 

Jefferson,  an  abolitionist,   216,  240. 

"Jerking"  meat,  20,  158. 

Jew,    negro    resembles,    in    racial    pride, 

295. 
"Johnnies,"  friendship  of,  for  "Yanks," 

395. 
Johnson,    Andrew,    319. 
Johnson,  Charley,   23. 
Johnston,   General  A.   S.,  161,   343. 
Johnston,    General  J.   E.,   312,   359,   372, 

391. 
Kansas,   63. 

Kansas-Nebraska    Bill,    243. 
Kearney,  Fort,  35,  147. 
Kentucky,     neutrality,     333;     campaign, 

335. 
Kiva,   of  Pueblo  Indians,  65,  77. 
Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  328. 
Ku  Klux  Klan,  276. 
Labor,   see  Work. 
LaCrosse,  railroad  to,   113. 
Land,   from  Indians,  14,  38;   opening  in 
1857,  115;  in  1892,  118;  office  at  Santa 

Fe,  194;  negro  desire  for,  262. 
Laramie,   Fort,   147,   159. 
Law,  of  Pueblo   Indian,   72. 
Laguna,    cathedral    at,    76,    192. 
Lee,    Fitshugh,    402. 
Lee,  Robert  E.,  265,  334,  346,  364,  384, 

391. 
Lincoln,      pardoned     Indians,      33;      on 

slavery,    240;    proclamation    of,    248; 

early  life,   319;   election,   327;   opposi- 
tion to,  in  congress,  329. 
Logan,   John   A.,   329. 
Longfellow,     describes    compass-     plant, 

145. 
Lookout   Mountain,    362. 
Los  Angeles,  water  supply  of,  204. 
Loyalty,     not     universal,     316,     327;     of 

the      "crackers,"      320;      of      German 

citizens,   421. 
Ludendorff,   General,    440. 
Lyon,   General,   13,   336. 
Lys  movement,    436. 
McClellan,    General,    334,    346. 
McKinley,    President,    403. 
Maine,   explosion  of  the,    404. 
Manila   Bay,   battle   of,    407. 
"Marmon,"    quotation   from,   317. 
Marriage,    of    Pueblos,     71;    of    slaves, 

236. 
"Massa,"   as  title   of  address,   257,   285, 

302. 
Massacre,     at     New     Ulm,     33;      Sand 

Creek,    40;    of  Moravian   Indians,    50; 

at    Chicago,    85;    Mountain    Meadow, 

152;    Boston,    213;    Fort    Pillow,    254, 

384. 
Maya  Indians,  77. 


Meade,   General,  391. 

Medicine   man,   Indian,   35. 

Men,  numbers  of,  in  World  War,  419. 

Mendoza,   Antianco   de,   67. 

Merritt,    General,    410. 

Mesa,  formation,  182;  Enchanted,  190. 

Meuse-Argonne  offensive,  450. 

Mexicans,    17,    177. 

Michigan  Avenue,   102. 

Michigan  Southern  Railroad,  94. 

Migration  with  slaves,   231. 

Miles,   General,   413. 

Milwaukee  and  Chicago  Railway,  113. 

Milwaukee  and  LaCrosse  Railroad,  113. 

Minneapolis  in  1857,  109. 

Mission    style    of    architecture,    191. 

Missionary  work,  slave  trading  as,  214, 
219. 

Mississippi,  Union  men  in,  322;  River, 
341,    361. 

Missouri,  River,  149;  Compromise,  242, 
309;  and  secession,  333;  campaign, 
335. 

Mobile,  reunion  in,  396. 

Montojo,  Admiral,   407. 

Monument,   of  Chicago   Massacre,  87. 

Moravian    Indians,    50. 

Mormons,   44,   148. 

Mound    builders,    82. 

Names,  of  Pueblo  Indians,  71. 

Naron,   L.    H.,   321. 

Nashville,   Tenn.,    303,   373,   385. 

Navajo    blankets,    70. 

Navy,  in  Civil  War,  336,  342. 

Negro,  sold  in  Chicago,  95;  as  redemp- 
tioner,  212;  and  master,  220,  252; 
getting  freedom,  248;  in  army,  253, 
263,  384;  cook,  260;  better  off  in 
slavery?     296. 

Neutrality,  of  Kentucky,  33;  in  World 
War,   420. 

New  Mexico,  177;  University  buildings, 
191;   troops'  in  battle,   429. 

New  Ulm,  Indians  at,  33,  43. 

North,  shared  in  slave  trade,  213;  pro- 
slavery  sentiment  in,  239;  vs.  South 
in  military  training,  316;  disloyalty 
in,   328. 

Northern  views  of   South,   241,   310. 

Noyon-Mondidier  drive,   440. 

Observation    Point,    184. 

Offensives  in  1918,  German,  433;  Allied, 
434. 

Officers,  commissioning  of,  377;  train- 
ing  of,    424. 

Oise-Aisne    movement,    448. 

Omaha  in   1859,    109,   146. 

Organization    of    armies,    424. 

Osage,  land  sale  at,   115. 

Outfit,   of   plainsmen,   19. 

Paine,   General,   347. 

Paris   as   German   objective,    438. 

Pea  Ridge,  battle  of,  339. 

Peons,  of  Yucatan,  79;  in  New  Mexico, 
177. 


460 


INDEX 


Pershing,  General,  426,  435. 

Petrified    forest,    187. 

Pettis,    Governor,   322. 

Philippi,   battle   of,    334. 

Pierce,  selection  of,  242. 

Pike's  Peak,  gold  rush  to,  143;  caravans 
to,    153,    159. 

Pillow,   Fort,  254,  384. 

Pinion  nuts,  170. 

Pioneer,  men,  116;  life,  124;  hospitality, 
130. 

Pittsburg   Landing,   battle    of,    343,    429. 

Plantation   hours   of  work,    224,    237. 

Platte   River,   149. 

"Poor   white  trash,"   317. 

Pope,   General,  341,  346. 

Population,   growth  of,   206. 

Port   Hudson,    343,    360. 

Preachers,    negro,    281. 

Prices,   138;  of  slaves,  230. 

Prinzep,    Gavrilo,    418. 

Prisoners,    aided    to    escape   by    negroes, 

251;   dash  for  liberty,   388. 
Proctor,    Senator,   403. 
Property,    descent    of,    among    Pueblos, 

76;   acquired  by  negroes,  273,  285. 
Pueblo  Indians,   65,   182. 
Pullman,   Geo.   M.,   98;   cars,  406. 
Punishments    for   slaves,    237. 
Purgatory    River,    173. 
Quaker   treaty   with    Indians,    44. 
Ouivira,    67. 

Raid    by   cavalry,    353,    365,    367,    370. 
Railroads,    to    Chicago,    94;    celebration, 
101;    building,    112;    men,    113;    train 
boy,    115. 
Rainbow,  in  complete  circle,   185. 
Ration   for  slaves,   235,  300. 
Raton,  Pass,  16,  176;  Range,  167. 
Reconstruction,    276. 
Redemptioners,   212. 
Regiment,    see    Second. 
Religion  of  Pueblos,   71. 
Republican,  Party,  246;  national  conven- 
tion,   330. 
Responsibility,  of  all  for  a  few,   42. 
Reunion   of   Confederates,   396. 
Rheims,  attack  on,  444. 
Richmond,   objective  of  Civil   War,  346, 

358,    364,    372;    flight    from,    392. 
Roads,  primitive,  15,  144,  149. 
Rocky  Mountains,   beauty   of,   164. 
Roosevelt,   Dam,    202;    President,   405. 
Rosecrans,    General,    256,    334,    361. 
St.    Louis,    colored    families    assisted    in, 

294;   barracks,  337. 
St.   Mihiel  salient,  449. 
St.  Paul  in  1857,   109. 
San  Antonio,  negro  church  in,  282,  291, 

301. 
Sand   Creek  massacre,    40,   62. 
San  Domingo,  Community  House  at,  75. 
Santa    Fe,    11,    149;    Trail,    14,   63,    176; 
Fine    Art    Building,    192;    land    office, 
194;   residences,   196. 


Santanta,   Kiowa  chief,   62. 
Savannah,   390. 
Scalping,   49. 
Scandia  Mountain,   197. 
Scott,   General,   49. 
Scott's   Bluff,    36. 
Scout,   an  old,   52. 
Secession,    246. 

Second    Iowa    Cavalry,    251,    336,    347, 
365,   385,   394;   officers  in  Company  I, 
377;   in  Sturgis'  Raid,  380. 
Second    Michigan    Cavalry,    353. 
Second  Missouri  Cavalry,  395. 
Severity,  necessary  to  slavery,   223. 
Sliafter,   General,  406,  411. 
Sheridan,   General,  48,  354,   392. 
Sherman,  General  W.  T.,  401,  312,  358, 

372,   390. 
Sign  language,   30. 
Sioux  Indians,   28,  33,  35,  43. 
Sisseton   Reservation,   33,    46,   118. 
Skeletons,   of  buffalo,   63. 
Slave,   sold  in   Chicago,   95;   Institution, 

209. 
Slavery,    grew,    never    established,    211; 
seemingly  impregnable,  242;  better  for 
negro   than   freedom?      296. 
Slaves,    freed    by    war,    249,    256;    house 

servants  vs.  field  hands,  299. 
Sleeping  cars,  for  soldiers,  406. 
Soldier,     filing     for     homesteads,     119; 

charcoal   burner,    178. 
Soldiers,   issue  a   paper,   347. 
"Soldiers'  Rest,"  in  Chicago,  102. 
Somme,  movement  of  the,  432. 
South,    spent   for   education   of   negroes, 

271;  Union  sentiment  in,  319. 
South  Carolina,  secession  of,  246;  nulli- 
fication,  310. 
South  Dakota,  land  opening,  118. 
Southern      views      of,      Jefferson      and 
Lincoln,     240;     the    North,    241;     the 
Civil   War,    397. 
Spanish  American  War,  Chapter  XVIII, 

400. 
Spanish   language,   17,   179. 
Speculators,     at       land      opening,      116; 

profits   and   losses   of,    121. 
Spirit   Lake,    outrages   at,    43. 
Squatter   sovereignty,    244. 
Staff  duty,  376. 
Stampede,   of  stock,   161. 
Strategy,  of  Indians,  23,  25. 
Streets,  of  early  Chicago,  95,  96,  98. 
Sturgis  expedition,   254,  380. 
Submarine,    in   World   War,    421. 
Sumter,    Fort,    311. 
Supreme   Court,    245. 
Surby,    Sergt.    R.    W.,    322. 
Surrender,  of  Lee  and  Johnston,  393. 
Taney,  Judge,  245,   262. 
Taxes,  on  non-residents,  121,  127. 
Teachers,   of  negroes,  269,   271. 
Telegraph,  first  in  Chicago,  97,  98. 
Temperature,  real  and  apparent,  200. 


INDEX 


461 


Tennessee   River,    340. 

Thieving,    by    Indians,    54,    59,    61. 

Thirteenth  Amendment,  248. 

Thomas,    General,    835,    363,    386. 

Tillman,    Senator,    262. 

Tobacco  and  slavery,  215,  218. 

Tonl   sector,    437. 

Trader,  Indian  as,  25;  Pueblo,  68;  slave, 
233. 

Transportation,  of  soldiers,  406;  across 
ocean,   427. 

Trapper,  dress  of,   17,   26. 

Traveling  outfit,   16,   19,   26. 

Treaties,  with  Indians,  14,  38,  44,  47, 
49. 

Tremont  House,  in  Chicago,  98. 

Trkiidad,  173. 

Truth,  impossible  to  tell  the  whole,  210; 
Indian   regard   for,  48. 

Tunnelled   rock,    29. 

Union,  Fort,  167,  179;  men  in  the 
South,    322. 

Vallandingham,   328. 

Van    Voores,    Dr.,   88. 

Vardaman,    Senator,    262. 

Vargels,    Diego    de,    68. 

Vicksburg,   343,   356. 

Vigilance  committee,   322. 

Virgin   feasts,  of  Indians,  34. 

Volunteers,  methods  of  handling,  313; 
in  war  with  Spain,  405;  qualities  of, 
414;    in   World  War,   424. 

Wages,  to  former  slaves,  257;  of  f reed- 
men,    300. 

Walker's    men,    311. 

War,  with  Indians,  41;  Civil,  Chapter 
XVII,  309;  Spanish-American,  Chap- 
ter XVIII,  400;  World  War,  Chapter 
XIX,   418. 


Washington,  Booker,  251,  262,  295, 
305. 

Washington,  George,-  views  of  slavery, 
217,    225,    228. 

Water,  supply  of  Chicago,  102;  boy  on 
train,    113. 

Wells,    Captain,    89,    90. 

West,  Settling  of,  Part  II,  83;  wilder- 
ness of  the,  64;  compared  witli  East, 
180;  Virg.nia  campaign,  334. 

Weyler,   General,    402. 

Wheat,    marketing    of,    127. 

Whip,   for   slaves,   225. 

Whipple,    Bishop,    47. 

White   Antelope,   Indian  chief,   40. 

White  Earth   Agency,   45. 

Wilderness,  of  the  Southwest,  64; 
battles   of  the,   375. 

Wilson,    President,  420. 

Wilson's  Creek,  battle  of,  13,  336. 

Wise,   Governor,   13. 

Women,  Indian,  34;  as  field  hands,  236. 

Wood,    Fernando,    269. 

Work,  hours  for  slave,  224,  237; 
Southern  view  of,  256;  learned  by 
negro,  265. 

World  War,  Chapter  XIX,  418;  com- 
pared with  Civil  War,  315,  376,  393, 
452. 

"Yanks,"  fraternize  with  Confederates, 
394. 

Y.  M.  C.  A.,  in  early  Chicago,  97. 

Ypres-Lys  movement,    448. 

Yucatan,    Maya    Indians   in,    77. 


